Gold price leaps past $1,200 on safe haven buying

Gold for delivery in June – the most active futures contract – gained $21.76 or 1.8% hitting a high of $1,219.76 early on, before pulling back in early afternoon trade in New York to around $1,206 an ounce, still a three-week high. The gold price is up more than 6% after dropping to a 2015 low of $1,148.20 an ounce last week and has now retraced almost 40% of its losses since the 2015 high above $1,300 reached in January.

Nervous investors piled into gold following a second day of sharp gains for the oil price to above $50 a barrel after top producer Saudi-Arabia launched airstrikes in Yemen against Iranian-backed militias that have taken over large swathes of the country.

With Egypt being drawn into the conflict on the Arabian Peninsula, the prospects for another protracted ground war in the region becomes more likely.

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