Commodities: weaker dollar helps gold stay put

The greenback weakened against a basket of currencies on Thursday with the dollar index dropping 0.11% to 93.117 by 1715 GMT, it's lowest level in more than a month.

Little reaction was seen in gold prices as the spot contract was relatively flat at $1,291/oz., while the February contract fell 0.12% to $1,295/oz..

Wednesday saw the biggest drop in the dollar for five months as the latest FOMC meeting minutes showed "many participants" were concerned inflation would stay below the bank's 2 percent target for longer than expected.

"Gold is obviously still in need of a spark but we still see a chance of it reaching our year-end target of $1,325," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

"The outlook for inflation is still low, long yields will remain subdued and then we have geopolitical risks rising this year. That's enough to prompt investors to buy gold, even though the growth outlook is still strong across the world."

Due to bank holidays in both Japan and the US, trading was lighter than usual on Thursday.

In other precious metals, silver fell 0.3% to $17.11/oz., platinum was down 0.51% to $934/oz while palladium was 0.28% firmer at $1,011/oz., contesting with resistance in that area.

A weaker dollar helped copper rise for a fifth day, trading 0.3% higher to $6,965/tonne by 1730 GMT, although concerns over demand from top consumer China after a sharp fall in Chinese share prices limited rises.

China's economy cooled in October, with industrial output, fixed-asset investment and retail sales missing expectations as the government extended a crackdown on debt risks and factory pollution.

"Risk sentiment in markets has recovered a bit and we've seen the dollar fall back. But a looming concern would be China where we saw the stock market fall nearly 3 percent today. If that is giving a signal about the economy then metals will respond," Danske Bank analyst Jens Pedersen said.

Over in Peru, workers for the two largest unions at Southern Copper Corp started an indefinite strike, though the company said operations were unaffected.

Trading on virtual currency Bitcoin was relatively subdued, dropping 0.85% to $8,150. The crypto currency has been stuck in trading range of $8,038/293 since the start of the week.

Oil prices received a boost higher on Thursday, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) hitting a two year high, up 0.76% to $58.47/barrel and benchmark brent crude 0.13% firmer to $63.45/barrel, as the shutdown of a major crude pipeline from Canada and a draw on fuel inventories pointed to a tightening market, despite rising output from U.S. producers.

TransCanada Corp's 590,000-barrel-per-day Keystone pipeline was shut down following a spill last week which helped drive oil prices higher as expectations increased of reduced stocks in US storage hub at Cushing Oklahoma.

"Inventories should drain sharply in the next few weeks given the uncertain timeline for a restart of the Keystone pipeline, a major artery for Canadian heavy oil barrels into the heart of the Cushing hub," said Martin King, a GMP FirstEnergy analyst in Calgary.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are due to meet on the 30 November and released a draft agenda on Thursday that shows a three hour slot for the group's oil ministers to decide whether to extend their oil supply curbs, indicating that decision-making is expected to run smoothly.

"Whatever OPEC will be discussing and ... agreeing upon can be made redundant by the actions of U.S. suppliers, which are likely to hike up production in a similar order," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank.

Agriculturals saw March soybean futures trade flat at $10.08/bushel, while December corn was 0.23% firmer at $3.45/bushel