Gold stocks raced ahead on the Australian stock exchange on Tuesday as the gold price neared an all-time high in Australian dollar terms.
At 1452 AEDT the spot price of gold in Sydney was $US569.20 per fine ounce, up $US6.65 on Monday night's close.
The price is still a long way from the all time high of $US850 set in January 1980, but mining consultancy group Surbiton Associates says it is close to the all time high in Australian dollar terms.
When the previous record of $US850 was set the equivalent Australian dollar price was $A766.
"With the Australian dollar now trading just below 75 US cents, we only need a US dollar gold price of around $US573 per ounce to break the record which has stood for 26 years," Surbiton managing director Sandra Close said.
Although gold is traded and priced across the world in US dollars, Dr Surbiton said local producers, who incur costs in local currency, focus on the Australian dollar gold price.
"It is the margin between their Australian dollar costs and the Australian dollar prices they receive for gold sales that largely determines their profitability," she said.
Local gold stocks on Tuesday responded to the latest surge in the price of the yellow metal and at 1517 AEDT Australia's largest gold producer Newcrest Mining had climbed $1.23 or nearly five per cent to $26.02.
Global gold giant Newmont Mining, recently deposed as the world's biggest gold miner by Barrick Gold's takeover of fellow Canadian Placer Dome, climbed 22 cents to $8.17.
Papua New Guinea miner Lihir Gold was up three cents to $2.42 and Thai miner Kingsgate Consolidated had shot up 30 cents to $5.87.
Ayn Rand:
Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.
