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NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Gold surged to a record high above $1,040 per ounce on Tuesday, as investors piled into the metal to preserve the value of their dollar-denominated assets against erosion by a weakening dollar and inflation.

Both spot gold prices and U.S. gold futures have benefited from a convergence of factors, including technical buying, a report that some oil producers could switch to other currencies to price their crude and worries about the potential inflation impact of unprecedented global fiscal stimulus.

"In an environment where interest rates are virtually zero, the incremental cost of moving into gold is nil. It stands to reason for investors that gold is more desirable," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris private bank in Chicago.

Spot gold hit a historic $1,043.45 per ounce, and was last up 1.9 percent at $1,036.10 at 2:36 p.m. EDT (1836 GMT), against $1,016.65 quoted late in New York on Monday.

Bullion surpassed its previous record $1,030.80 set in March 2008. Year to date, the metal has gained 18 percent.

However, Tuesday's all-time high was still sharply below the inflation-adjusted record pinpointed by analysts. Metals consultancy GFMS put that figure as high as $2,079 an ounce.

Most-active U.S. gold December futures hit an all-time high $1,045. December settled at $1,039.70 an ounce, up 2.2 percent or $21.90.

Bullion also hit six-month highs when priced in sterling and euros, breaking above 700 euros an ounce for the first time since early April.

The dollar slipped sharply after U.K. newspaper the Independent said Gulf Arab states were in secret discussions to end the use of dollars in oil trading. Big oil-producing countries later denied the report.

An interest rate hike in Australia also reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve will lag other central banks in ending its loose monetary policy.

Gold's rally was driven primarily by fears over currency depreciation. A weaker dollar, however, will eventually lead to import-led inflation down the road, analysts said.
Traders said they were also seeing rising demand in India, the largest consumer of gold last year, ahead of the Diwali festival on October 19.

Mark Cutifani, chief executive of AngloGold Ashanti, the world's third largest and Africa's top gold producer, said he saw gold prices at $950 to $1,100 an ounce in the next 12 months, and they could break $1,100 if the U.S. economy continued to dip and investment demand rises.

The yellow metal's gains helped lift silver to a two-week high of $17.36 an ounce as investors bought it as a cheaper proxy for gold. Silver, which has the market characteristics of both the precious and industrial metals, was later at $17.25 an ounce against $16.59. Palladium hits its highest since August last year at $308.50. It was last at $307.50 against $298.50.

Platinum, the precious metal widely used in autocatalyst manufacturing, also benefited from gold's climb, as well as the better appetite for risk demonstrated by rising equity markets. Platinum was at $1,315 an ounce against $1,293.

Article Links:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59534Z20091006?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Published: 6:39AM BST 06 Oct 2009

The move would see oil priced not in dollars but in a unit based on a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, and a new currency intended for use by the Gulf emirates, according to a report in Tuesday's Independent newspaper. The paper added that the transistion from the dollar to a new currency will take almost a decade.

Finance ministers and central bankers have held meetings in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to discuss the idea, which the Americans are aware of, the Independent said.

"Eventually there will be a move to non-dollar commodity contracts, and it may be the next big risk for the dollar," Ben Simpfendorfer, chief China economist for Royal Bank of Scotland, told Bloomberg. "At the same time, I don't want to overplay the importance of the story. There's no credible sources there."

The financial crisis has intensified speculation about the eventual demise of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. In the last six months, Russia, Brazil, India and China have already discussed buying each other's debt as a way of cutting their dependence on the dollar, while the United Nations last month proposed a new global currency to replace the greenback.

The dominant role of the dollar in world trade and financial markets - a position it inherited from sterling - has already been under threat since the formation of the euro and the emergence of China as a major economic power.

The amount of the the world's currency reserves held in dollars has fallen over the past decade, with the it declining to a record low of 62.8pc in the second quarter, figures from the International Monetary Fund showed last week. The euro's share climbed to 27.5pc from 25.9pc.

But few experts expect the dollar's status to be quickly eclipsed.

Niall Ferguson, a Harvard University Professor, said yesterday that there wouldn't be a dollar collapse given the lack of proper alternatives. “There are enormously strong arguments for maintaining a substantial pile of your reserves in dollar form,” according to Professor Ferguson. "That is still the currency of choice for most of the trade that goes on in the world.”

However, there seems little doubt that China's fears over the fate of the dollar have increased recently. Timothy Geither, the US Treasury Secretary, has sought to ease China's worry that America's combination of record low interest rates and a policy of printing money will spark a sharp decline in the currency. China is America's biggest international creditor.

The dollar was weaker in early morning trading in London, losing half a cent against the euro at $1.4722 and weaker against the pound.

Article Link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/6263992/Dollars-demise-plotted-by-oil-producers-China-and-France-report-says.html

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- China’s manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace in 17 months in September on stimulus spending and this year’s record growth in new loans.

The Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to a seasonally adjusted 54.3 from 54.0 in August, the Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said today in an e-mailed statement in Beijing. The latest number was lower than the median estimate of 55 in a Bloomberg News survey of 13 economists. A reading above 50 indicates an expansion.

China, which is marking 60 years of Communist Party rule today, has pledged to maintain stimulus policies to create jobs, maintain social stability and strengthen the recovery of the world’s fastest-growing major economy. A manufacturing index released by HSBC Holdings Plc yesterday also showed an expansion in September as a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package countered a slump in exports.

“Manufacturing is likely to keep climbing steadily as investment, production and retail sales all rebound further and exports bottom out,” said Lu Zhengwei, an economist at Industrial Bank Co. in Shanghai. Lu estimates China’s economy may grow 9 percent this quarter, up from 7.9 percent in the previous three months.

China’s stock markets were closed today for a public holiday.

Stimulus Measures

Today’s manufacturing figure compares with a record-low 38.8 in November, when recessions in the U.S., Europe and Japan sent export orders plunging and Premier Wen Jiabao’s stimulus package was yet to kick in. China’s economic growth will keep strengthening for the rest of 2009, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists in August.

An output index rose to 58.0 in September from 57.9 in August, a measure of new orders climbed to 56.8 from 56.3, and an export-order index increased to 53.3 from 52.1, according to today’s statement.

An index of employment index rose to 53.2, the highest level since April 2008, from 51.4. Fifteen out of the 20 industries surveyed by the agency showed expansion in September.

“China’s economy will continue to rebound, and with the relatively fast recovery in employment and incomes, that rebound is sustainable,” Zhang Liqun, a researcher at the State Council Development and Research Center, said in today’s statement.

Zhang cautioned that policy makers must focus on preserving growth as China’s economic rebound was not solid and the recovery was still mainly driven by government stimulus rather than consumption.

Tax Cuts

China’s industrial output rose the most in a year in August as passenger-car sales almost doubled on tax cuts and government subsidies. Local truck-maker Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co. said this week that it plans a venture with Caterpillar Inc. and Navistar International Corp. to boost production and tap demand in the world’s fastest-growing major vehicle market.

Industrial overcapacity and a 10-month slump in exports are drags on the nation’s recovery.

China’s State Council, or cabinet, announced on Sept. 29 a ban on building aluminum smelters and coking projects for three years and a temporary halt on new cement projects. It also said the steel industry shouldn’t expand, without specifying a period.

The manufacturing index, released by the logistics federation and the Beijing-based National Bureau of Statistics, is based on replies to questionnaires sent to purchasing executives at more than 730 companies in 20 industries. It began in January 2005.

Article Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aumIPJNSpcZg

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mark Sherman, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 7 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court says it will take up a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns, opening the way for a ruling that could set off a vigorous new campaign to roll back state and local gun controls across the nation.

Victory for gun-rights proponents in the Chicago case is considered likely, even by supporters of gun control, in the latest battle in the nation's long and often bitter dispute over the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. A ruling against the city's outright ban could lead to legal challenges to less-restrictive laws across the country that limit who can own guns, whether firearms must be registered and how they should be stored.

The case is to be argued early next year.

Last year, the justices struck down a prohibition on handguns in the District of Columbia, a city with unique federal status, as a violation of the Second Amendment. Now the court will decide whether that ruling should apply to local and state laws as well.

The court has previously said that most, but not all, rights laid out in the Constitution's Bill of Rights serve as checks on state as well as federal restrictions. Separately, 44 state constitutions already enshrine gun rights.

Though faced with potential limits from the high court on their ability to enact laws and regulations in this area, 34 states weighed in on the gun- rights side before the justices agreed to take the case Wednesday, an indication of the enduring strength of the National Rifle Association and its allies.

The gun case was among several the court added to its docket for the term that begins Monday. Others include:

• A challenge to part of a law that makes it a crime to provide financial and other aid to any group designated a terrorist organization.

• A dispute over when new, harsher penalties can be given to sex offenders who don't register with state sex offender databases.

• Whether to throw out a human rights lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities. The issue is whether a federal law gives the former official, Mohamed Ali Samantar, immunity from lawsuits in U.S. courts.

In the gun case, outright handgun bans appear to be limited to Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Ill. But a ruling against those ordinances probably would "open up all the gun regulations in the country to constitutional scrutiny, of which there are quite a few," said Mark Tushnet, a Harvard Law School professor whose recent book "Out of Range" explores the often bitter national debate over guns.

Already, Alan Gura, who led the legal challenge to the Washington law and represents the plaintiff in Chicago, is suing to overturn the District of Columbia's prohibition on carrying firearms outside a person's home. Illinois and Wisconsin have similar restrictions.

In voiding Washington's handgun ban last year, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that gun rights, like the right to speech, are limited and that many gun control measures could remain in place.

Ultimately, said Tushnet, the court will have to decide, possibly restriction by restriction, which limits are reasonable.

"It's very hard to know where this court would draw the line between reasonable and unreasonable," he said.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said he hopes the court rules that "core fundamental freedoms like speech, religion and, we believe, the right to keep and bear arms are intended to apply to every individual in the country."

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the court's decision to take up the new case was unsurprising in light of last year's ruling.

These cases should "take the extremes off the table," Helmke said, referring to bans on guns and unlimited gun rights. "What's critical for us is how the court goes about fleshing out what the limits are."

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago had upheld the gun bans as legitimate expressions of local and state rights.

Judge Frank Easterbrook, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the ruling that "the Constitution establishes a federal republic where local differences are to be cherished as elements of liberty rather than extirpated in order to produce a single, nationally applicable rule."

"Federalism is an older and more deeply rooted tradition than is a right to carry any particular kind of weapon," Easterbrook wrote.

Evaluating arguments over the extension of the Second Amendment is a job "for the justices rather than a court of appeals," he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then an appeals court judge, was part of a three-judge panel in New York that reached a similar conclusion in January.

The high court took the suggestion Wednesday.

Judges on both courts — Republican nominees in Chicago and Democratic nominees in New York — said only the Supreme Court could decide whether to extend last year's ruling throughout the country.

The New York ruling also has been challenged, but the court did not act on it Wednesday. Sotomayor would have to sit out any case involving decisions she was part of on the appeals court. Although the issue is the same in the Chicago case, there is no ethical bar to her participation in its consideration by the Supreme Court.

She replaced Justice David Souter, who dissented in the 5-4 Washington case, so the five-justice majority remains intact.

Several Republican senators cited the Sotomayor gun ruling, as well as her reticence on the topic at her confirmation hearing, in explaining their decision to oppose her confirmation to the high court.

Article Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_guns