Gold surges above %1 200 as details-shy Trump weighing on dollar

London - Spot gold rallied as investors flooded back into funds backed by the metal and the dollar fell in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s heated press conference that provided little detail of his economic stimulus plans.

The metal is up more than 2% since the press conference started in New York on Wednesday, rising above $1 200 an ounce for the first time since late November and exchange-traded holdings jumped by the most since the election.
 
The US currency fell against all of its major peers, dropping 1.1% against the Japanese yen.

The President-elect spent much of his first press conference since winning the election attacking the media and intelligence agencies, as well as on explaining his plans to insulate his presidency from his business interest, disappointing those who had hoped to hear more of his fiscal plan.

"Gold is rising as question marks emerge over the consensus view that Trump would be great for the dollar and great for stocks on a grand, unfunded building plan," Adrian Ash, head of research at online gold trading site BullionVault, said by phone from London.

"Traffic has been pretty much all one-way for us, customers are buying."

Gold for immediate delivery soared as much as 1.3%to $1 207.07 an ounce and traded at $1,204.45 an ounce by 11:21 in London, according to Bloomberg generic pricing.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the currency’s strength versus trading partners, dropped 0.8%.

Holdings in exchange-traded funds backed by the metal rose 1.6 metric tons on Wednesday, the biggest jump since November 9.

In other precious metals:

Silver rose 1.1% to $16.9094 an ounce. Platinum rose as much as 2% to $991.13, highest since November 10. Palladium climbed 0.3% to $757.68 an ounce.