US precious metals rise on weaker dollar

New York (Platts)--30May2006

With the dollar continuing to head south, gold and other precious metals
have maintained their firming trend on the New York exchanges Tuesday morning.

Basis the August contract on the COMEX, gold gained $9.60 to reach
$667/oz at 10:36am EDT (14:36 GMT) and July silver rose 51cts to $13.24/oz. On
the NYMEX, the July platinum contract rose $5 to $1,303.10/oz and September
palladium rose $4.45 to $365/oz.

The dollar is considerably weaker than it was at the close of trading
last week, hovering around $1.2895/euro and yen 111.78. Investors are showing
their concerns about the weak dollar by acquiring precious metals, according
to Barclays Capital.

Prices received some support Tuesday morning on renewed concerns about a
weakening dollar, triggered by press speculation that Don Evans was a possible
successor to the current Treasury Secretary John Snow, Barclays said in its
morning commentary. But President George W. Bush ended the speculation when he
nominated Henry Paulson, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs to succeed Snow
Tuesday morning.

"We continue to see risks as skewed to the upside over the medium term,
on a combination of uncertainty over the dollar, rising concerns about
inflationary threat, as well as a reduction of the speculative froth as a
result of the recent correction."

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