Today news, Gold at new high as stocks pause for breath. Gold marched to a fresh peak but Asian and European stocks paused for breath on Thursday after Wall Street finished in positive territory overnight, but well off the 13-month highs achieved earlier in the session.

The dollar, whose sudden uptick from 15-month lows on Wednesday appeared to drive Wall Street’s pullback, added to those gains in early European trading. The greenback’s reversal challenged traders’ fashionable mantra of “weak dollar good” for riskier assets such as equities and commodities. Gold at new high as stocks pause for breath.

Against the euro the dollar was up 0.2 per cent at $1.4945. News that eurozone industrial production had risen 0.3 per cent in September, slightly less than expected, had negligible impact. On a trade-weighted basis the greenback rose 0.15 per cent to 75.22.

The main mover in the foreign exchange markets was the Aussie dollar, which hit a 15-month high against its US namesake of $0.9369 on strong jobs figures. It later traded up 0.27 per cent at $0.9316.

Early Asian action had seen renewed weakness in the greenback and this was sufficient to propel gold to a new all-time high of $1,122.85 an ounce. But the dollar’s new-found vigour saw the precious metal later drop 0.2 per cent to $1,114.8.

The main European exchanges gave up modest gains on the dollar’s advance, though still sat within sight of 2009 highs. The FTSE 100 was flat at 5,266.1, while the FTSE Eurofirst 300 lost 0.2 per cent at 1,011.3.

Asian stock markets had provided little impetus. Bourses in the region put in a varied showing with not much thrust offered in turn by Wall Street after the S&P 500 retreated from a new high for 2009 of 1,105.3 to settle up 0.5 per cent at 1,098.5.

Read more about “Gold at new high” at cnn.