LONDON—The spot price of gold rose to a six-day high as Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes raised expectations for another round of monetary easing.
Gold hit a high of $1,360.05 a troy ounce and neared within 0.4% of last Thursday's record of $1,364.95. It recently traded at $1,359.50, up $9, or 0.7%.
The FOMC minutes, released Tuesday, suggest the Fed considered restarting a program to buy U.S. Treasurys and debated measures to raise the public's expectations for future inflation.
UBS analyst Edel Tully cautioned gold could correct if the Fed's asset purchases are smaller than expectated, since gold prices have already risen substantially in anticipation of quantitative easing.
She said UBS expects the Fed will buy $35 billion to $65 billion in Treasurys a month and will review the purchases on a quarterly basis.
Analysts also said scrap gold sales have picked up, highlighting a potential bearish factor for prices.
"There's a lot of scrap coming to market," said Standard Bank analyst Walter de Wet.
While investment demand will likely absorb most of the selling, scrap sales should still slow gold's ascent, possibly keeping a cap on prices at around $1,360/oz, he said.
"We're probably going to be in this $1,330-$1,360/oz range until at least the first week of November," he said, when the next FOMC meeting occurs.
In other metals, spot silver was up 26 cents, or 1.1%, to $23.57 an ounce. Spot platinum was up $25, or 1.5%, at $1,701 an ounce, and spot palladium was $12, or 2.1%, higher at $593 an ounce.
