Gold jumps again after US jobless claims soar to a new record

Gold prices have bounced back after a mid-week trip below the $US1,600-per-ounce mark on news the US labour market recorded another 3 million rise to a record 6.65 million first-time jobless claims.

June gold futures last traded at $US1,626 per ounce, or a mighty $2,682.85 per ounce in Australian dollar terms thanks to our currency’s weakness against its US counterpart.

While BNP Paribas believes that the precious metal will top out at an average of $US1,675 per ounce this year, it also highlighted that gold would continue to appeal to investors looking for safety during uncertain times.

Quantitative easing measures by global central banks and fiscal stimulus being tossed around also boosts the incentive to hold gold.

READ: It was tough to raise capital in March unless you were a gold explorer

Gold producer Red 5 (ASX:RED) has exercised an option to complete the acquisition of the 62,000oz Great Western gold deposit from Terrain Minerals (ASX:TMX) for $2.5m in cash and RED shares.

Great Western is just 80km trucking distance from Red 5’s Darlot mining and processing operations near Leinster, Western Australia, and still has further exploration upside.

The company said the acquisition supported its multi-strand strategy to expand the Darlot resource base, which included regional ‘bolt-on’ acquisitions in addition to aggressive exploration.

In the Northern Territory, PNX Metals (ASX:PNX) has observed multiple occurrences of visible gold in diamond drill core from the Fountain Head gold project within the broader Hayes Creek project.

Two diamond holes were completed in March to provide geotechnical information for the proposed open pit mining operation and to capture new geological data from the south-eastern end of the Tally Ho lode.

The company said the visible gold suggested that not only did the Tally Ho lode remain open along strike and at depth but that the majority of quartz veins contained coarse and nuggety gold mineralisation.

Uranium-player-turned-gold-prospector Toro Energy (ASX:TOE) has highlighted the potential of the Golden Ways target at its Yandal project to host high-grade gold after receiving assay results from rock chip sampling during its recent geochemical mapping campaign.

The rock chip samples from outcropping and sub-cropping quartz veins included a top result of 65.6 grams per tonne gold with anomalous gold samples dispersed widely throughout the target area.

Toro says the result indicates the potential for high-grade gold in a significant quartz vein hosted system at Golden Ways.