Gold futures climbed in New York for the first time in three sessions on surging demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment before the release later this week of U.S. banks’ stress-test results. Silver rose. The tests are expected to signal whether 19 top financial firms need more capital to withstand any deterioration in the economy. The Federal Reserve plans to make public the stress- test results on May 7. Some investors buy precious metals as a safe harbor in times of economic turmoil. “This week’s ECB interest rate decision and U.S. bank stress-test results will dominate the action in the gold price,” said Bayram Dincer, a Dresdner Bank commodity analyst in Zurich. “Gold will retest $910 an ounce resistance and surpass it. Gold fundamentals are still well intact and are expected to become more price-supportive in the near term.” Gold futures for June delivery jumped $15.50, or 1.7 percent, to $903.70 an ounce at 9:59 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price fell 2.8 percent last week, the most since the first week in April. “It seems clear that net-long positions remain annoyingly high and that until we have seen a major clear out of Comex speculative positions, gold remains vulnerable to further weakness,” John Reade, UBS AG’s head metals strategist in London, said today in a report. Silver futures for July delivery climbed 38.5 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $12.885 an ounce. The most-active contract slumped 5.1 percent last month, while gold slid 3.7 percent. The 16-nation euro-zone’s shrinking economy will prompt the European Central Bank to lower its main refinancing rate by a quarter of a percentage point, or 25 basis points, to 1 percent on May 7, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

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