MUMBAI, FEB 5: The precious metals skyrocketed on the bullion market today as gold zoomed by Rs 270 per ten gram to a three-month high of Rs 4,800 and silver shot up to a four-month high of Rs 8,425 a kg, following a sharp rise in the international prices. In the global market, gold prices shot up following reports that producers had bought back hedge positions coupled with bond market jitters which helped trigger flood of short covering and stop-loss buying, dealers said. The steep rise in silver prices was benefitted from gold market, they said.Bombay Bullion Association president M Sonawala said the unprecedented rise in both the precious metals was due to the sudden spurt in the overseas markets. According to him, Hong Kong and London silver and gold prices have gone up by 5 to 10% in a day which aided the uptrend in local markets. Sellers kept away as Hong Kong gold price crossed $ 300 and touched a new high of $ 310.40 against $ 287.20 on previous day.Traders said that hardly 50 tonnes of silverand 25 bars (each of two kgs) of gold arrived here from southern sides. They felt that both the prices are likely to rise further in the forthcoming week. The previous highest level recorded for gold on the local market was Rs 4910 on October 14, 1999, while silver showed the highest level of Rs 8600 on September 29, they added. On Saturday, standard gold rallied to Rs 4800 from the last close of Rs 4530, showing a remarkable rise of Rs 270. 22-carat gold was nominally quoted sharply higher at Rs 4440 as against yesterday's close of Rs 4190 and ten-tola gold bar (.999 purity) displayed a massive rise of Rs 3000 in a single day and closed at Rs 56,100 from the previous day's close of Rs 53,100.Ready silver (.999 fineness) opened sharply higher at Rs 8410 and rose further to end at Rs 8425.
