The price of gold rose on the European spot market on Friday, boosted by an uptick in physical demand for the metal.
Spot gold was up 0.3 per cent at $US1,279.77 a troy ounce in morning European trade.
The London-Zurich location swap rate turned positive "for the first time since early summer" indicating an increase in demand from buyers of physical bullion, said UBS analyst, Edel Tully.
It comes at a time the Indian market is approaching a seasonally busy period when families buy gold for weddings and festivals like the Hindu new year. The south Asian country, together with China, accounts for roughly 50 per cent of global gold demand.
The market is also looking to what impact speeches at the Jackson Hole central bankers' symposium are likely to have on gold prices.
"The Jackson Hole symposium is the main event for [Friday]," said Colin Tan, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. "We also have an all-star line-up of central bank governors this year."
"All eyes will clearly be on the Yellen's key note address," he said. "But this time round we'll also hear from Draghi at lunchtime, Kuroda from the Bank of Japan, and Broadbent from the Bank of England."
In other precious metals, silver was up 0.7 per cent at $US19.547 an ounce, platinum was up 0.3 per cent at $US1,416.60 an ounce, and palladium was up 0.2 per cent at $US878.40 an ounce.
