Commodities: Gold up as investors burrow for safety on geopolitical concerns

Gold is ahead as investors temporarily forgot UK Prime Minister Theresa May's would-be Brexit wonderland and bolted down a rabbit hole on Thursday in search of safety thanks to a proliferation of geopolitical concerns.

Tensions between the US and North Korea, as well as the US and Russia over Syria, remained in play, with markets also wary of the looming presidential election in France on 23 April.

This marked a welcome hop away from traders' just concerns about UK's post-Brexit landscape, which former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke earlier this year likened to a "wonderland" fantasy, referring to Lewis Carroll's book about Alice's adventures.

"Apparently you follow the rabbit down the hole and you emerge in a wonderland, where suddenly countries around the world are queuing up with trading advantages and access to their markets," said Clarke back in February.

Today, however, the story was about buying safe-haven assets such as the nil-yielding yellow metal. At about 15:04 GMT, on Comex, gold was up 0.58% to $1285.5 an ounce. Silver added 0.79% to $18.45 an ounce and copper rose 0.81% to 256.55 cents a pound.

"Gold is back testing nine-month falling highs resistance at $1289," said Henry Croft, research analyst at Accendo Markets.

"The (President Donald) Trump-inspired US dollar sell off continues to hurt the FTSE and DAX's foreign earning contingents, despite a marginal recovery," he added.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets UK, said the sentiment was generally adverse today, despite the promise of the long Easter weekend break.

"The current risk factor has a wide spectrum ranging from North Korea escalating the geopolitical uncertainty, US and Russian relationship at their new low, the scary outcome of French Election and the ongoing war in Syria," said Aslam.

"These prominent elements are supporting the gold price," he added.

"We mentioned last week that the rally in shining metal could easily touch and break the level of $1300 easily and we are still maintaining this target."

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at London Capital Group said some pause was expected in gold before considering a further rise toward $1300.

"Price pullbacks are expected to meet support at $1260 (minor 23.6% retrace on March-April rise)," said Ozkardeskaya.

Three-month industrial metals on London Metals Exchange were mostly down, heavily. Tin slumped 2.97%, copper tanked 2.41% and aluminum fell 1.2%, while zinc added 1.25%.

At 15:04 GMT, Nymex-priced WTI crude was up 0.15% to $53.19 a barrel. Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was up 0.04% up to $55.88 a barrel.

"Crude-oil benchmarks have broken two-week rising support," said Croft.

This followed Saudi Arabia recently dropping another hint about further production cuts, but the ifs and whens of this would be closely watched, as would compliance among Opec and non-Opec producers.

Crude prices are off lows seen in recent months, but the market remains oversupplied even as the latest API and EIA inventories data showed draws in the US last week.