VINACHEM

Gold headed for the biggest weeklygain since October on speculation that demand will increase in Asia, the largest consuming region. Platinum rose to the highestprice since November.

Bullion for immediate delivery climbed as much as 1.2percent to $1,238.93 an ounce, the highest level since Dec. 18,and was at $1,235.90 at 2:58 p.m. in Singapore, 1.9 percenthigher this week. Gold dropped to $1,182.27 on Dec. 31, thelowest level since June 28, capping the metal’s worst annualrout since 1981.

The volume for bullion of 99.99 percent purity on theShanghai Gold Exchange climbed to 10,400 kilograms yesterdayfrom 7,849 kilograms on Dec. 31, the least since Dec. 2. Thepremium to take immediate delivery in China, which probablyovertook India as the largest user in 2013, was about $21.07 anounce yesterday compared with last year’s average of $18.72.

“Gold is part of the Asian mindset that it’s a way tostore your wealth,” Ed Moy, chief strategist at Morgan Gold, an Irvine, California-based investor that offers bullion forretirement accounts, said in an interview on BloombergTelevision’s “First Up.” “Given the extremely strong demandfrom Asia, that should put some upward pressure on gold in thelong term.”

Gold for February delivery climbed 0.8 percent to $1,235.30an ounce on the Comex in New York amid trading volume that was44 percent above the 100-day average for this time, datacompiled by Bloomberg showed. Short gold holdings, referring tobets on lower prices, jumped almost fourfold from October toDec. 24, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.

Fed Tapering

Gold slumped 28 percent in 2013 as money-printing bycentral banks failed to spur inflation, damping demand for aprotection of wealth. Assets in bullion-backed exchange-tradedproducts shrank for the first year since the first product wasintroduced in 2003 as the Federal Reserve said that it willreduce bond purchases this month amid an improving economy.

“Everyone’s going to be watching the Fed taper, anddepending on how the Fed does it, it will have a dramatic impacton gold prices over the course of 2014,” said Moy. “There’sgoing to be a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility in goldprices.”

Platinum climbed as much as 1.5 percent to $1,424.88 anounce, the highest price since Nov. 19, and traded at $1,411.25.The rise extended yesterday’s 2.7 percent advance, which was themost since October.

Silver for immediate delivery rose as much as 1.3 percentto $20.2828 an ounce, heading for a second weekly gain, and wasat $20.1707. Palladium advanced 0.4 percent to $732.70 an ounce,up 2.9 percent and set for the best week since October.