Gold

Gold hit a further record high yesterday afternoon as Ben Bernanke said the Federal Reserve was prepared for QE3 while increasing risk of contagion in the eurozone worried investors.

Central banks have pulled 635 tonnes of gold from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the past year, the largest withdrawal in more than a decade, the FT reports.

BlackRock's Evy Hambro has backed the recent trend of strong dividend growth among gold miners to continue off the back of soaring gold prices.

Anthony Bolton, veteran investor and manager of Fidelity's £635m China Special Situations investment trust, has tipped the long-running bull market in gold to continue amid ongoing economic woes across the globe.

George Soros, who called gold "the ultimate bubble", dumped almost his entire $800m stake in bullion in the first quarter.

TIME TO SWITCH TO GOLD?

Silver futures have recovered from the worst weekly drop since 1975, gaining 4.4% Monday to reach $37 an ounce.

Schroders has renamed its gold and metals fund and changed the investment objective to allow it to invest in a different set of underlying commodities, including gold equities for the first time.

The price of gold soared yesterday to hit a new record before falling back following the death of the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden.

ON SPECIALIST