By Moming Zhou & Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures climbed to a fresh record above $1,200 an ounce Tuesday, as the dollar weakened and as the world's largest gold miner eliminated all of its gold hedges, showing confidence in a rising gold price.
The dollar continued its slide as worries over Dubai's debt woes eased, pushing up dollar denominated commodities prices. Barrick Gold Corp. said it has eliminated its gold hedges ahead of schedule and now has full leverage to the gold price.
Gold for December delivery rose as high as $1,202.70 an ounce. The front-month contract ended up $18, or 1.5%, at $1,199.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold ended November trading with one of the biggest gains in 10 years, up 13%. Futures only saw two losing sessions last month.
"The familiar formula of a weaker dollar, high volume, and higher equities still brings new buyers every day," said George Gero, a precious-metals trader for RBC Capital Markets, adding that Barrick's elimination of hedges helped present a bullish view.
Investors continued to add their positions in gold exchange-traded funds. Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust /quotes/comstock/13*!gld/quotes/nls/gld (GLD 117.46, +1.82, +1.57%) , the biggest gold ETF, rose to 1,129.99 metric tons as of Monday, up more than 2 metric tons from a day ago.
Holdings in all gold ETFs hit a new high of 1,768.5 metric tons, according to data collected by Barclays.
The prices of gold and other commodities have showed a strong inverse relationship with the dollar. In Tuesday trading, the dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 74.31, -0.57, -0.76%) , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, fell 0.8% to 74.291 in recent trading.
Barrick /quotes/comstock/13*!abx/quotes/nls/abx (ABX 46.41, +3.72, +8.71%) /quotes/comstock/11t!abx (CA:ABX 48.19, +3.31, +7.38%) 's announcement of hedge elimination came as gold repeatedly hit new highs in recent trading.
"Our positive view on the gold price led us to accelerate the elimination of these contracts ahead of the schedule we had established," said Aaron Regent, Barrick's president and chief executive officer, in a statement.
Barrick said in September that it planed to eliminate all of its gold hedges within 12 months.
"With their elimination we no longer have any gold price related mark-to-market exposure and will now fully benefit from increases in the gold price," he said.
Gold hedges were contracts where Barrick had sold forward gold ounces and would receive a fixed price upon delivering into these contracts.
As a result, the company did not benefit from any increase in the gold price, but the mark-to-market liability, or costs of these contracts, would increase with a rise in the gold price.
While gold is traditionally seen as a safe-haven investment, it has lately been trading as a risk asset, moving in tandem with stocks and other commodities.
In other metals, December silver rose 68.5 cents, or 3.7%, to $19.18 an ounce, December palladium gained $18, or 5%, to $381.55 an ounce, and January platinum added $26.40, or 1.8%, to $1,486.60 an ounce.
December copper rose 5.5 cents, or 1.7%, to $3.2035 a pound.
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