Gold traded sideways in the Far East then displayed a nice upward trend through London and New York to finish at $959.00/oz up $17.50. Overnight, gold has moved higher.

Platinum was flat through Hong Kong then off to the races starting about 8 a.m. in New York and managed to tack on an impressive $65.00 before all was said and done, ending at $1123/oz. Overnight, platinum is down slightly.

Silver’s path tracked gold to a T. The precious metal gained 68 cents on the day to close at $13.57/oz. Overnight, silver is trending higher. (Click here for charts)

It was a second straight day of big gains for the precious metals. While gold didn’t fare quite as well as the day before, silver and platinum were up even more.

Bullion’s sharp rise on Thursday is once again attributed to the continuing dollar decline following the U.S. Federal Reserve’s not so surprising announcement a day earlier that it intended to buy long-dated U.S. Treasuries along with U.S. mortgage and agency debt in a big way.

In addition, the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD) said its holdings rose to a record 1,103.29 metric tons by March 19, up 18.96 tons, or 1.7%, from the previous day.

“The underlying bullish outlook remains firmly intact with the past 4 weeks’ major corrective phase now fully confirmed to be complete,” Newedge said in a report. “Expect values to head back towards the February peaks in and around the $1,005-$1,010 zone in the days and weeks ahead.”

In company news, Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:ABX) said on Thursday it will issue $750-million in debt and use the proceeds to fund new mine construction and invest in the company’s subsidiaries, and for general corporate purposes.

Barrick, the world’s top gold producer, said it had entered an underwriting agreement to issue 6.95% notes due 2019 through a syndicate of underwriters led by Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM) and Citigroup (NYSE:C). The offering is expected to close on March 24. The issue comes as several gold miners have raised funds — most through equity issues — to take advantage of strong demand for gold assets in an otherwise weak market.

In a statement just after Barrick announced the news, Moody’s Investors Service assigned a Baa1 senior unsecured rating to the notes, and said it expects Barrick will use the funds to finance moderate size strategic acquisitions and to fund projects such as the Pascua Lama deposit in South America. Moody’s also said Barrick has $1.4 billion in cash and an unused revolving credit facility worth $1.5 billion.

Source: Precious Metals Have Another Big Day

Last 5 posts by Doug Casey

• Resource Stock Roundup:Monday, July 27, 2009 - July 27th, 2009
• Base Metals Higher - July 27th, 2009
• Crude Continues to Climb - July 27th, 2009
• Dollar Moves Lower - July 27th, 2009
• Gold Pushes Through $950 - July 27th, 2009