Gold hits record price

The U.S. dollar continued its downward slide Wednesday as gold hit anotherrecord.

The Toronto Stock Exchange, heavily weighted in gold and oil stocks, opened stronger but gave back much of those gains.The S&P/TSX composite index closed up22.7 points to 11,652.7.

The U.S. dollar moved lower against a basket of six other currencies after the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, James Bullard, said U.S. interest rates might not rise until early 2012.

He said the central bank's "main issue" would be how to avoid inflation as it borrows to pay for a massive program of economic stimulus.

The Federal Reserve's managing committee voted Nov. 4 to keep rates near zero for "an extended period."

The greenback wasn't helped either by comments by the director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, that the days of one country's currency as the global benchmark are limited. He said globalization demands a new global currency that represents the growing importance of a variety of major economies.

Canada's dollar traded near a four-week high early in the day, then slipped to close down 0.31 of a cent to 94.83 cents US.

Commodities gained as traders tried to get ahead of an apparent return to growth by Asian economies and expected increases in demand for raw materials. That sent gold up for a fourth day to yet another record, at $1,151 US.

By the afternoon, December bullion closedat $1,140.70 US an ounce, a gain of $1.90 from Tuesday.Copper jumped 2.3 per cent to touch a 14-month high of $6,992 U.S. per tonnein London.

The IMF said this week it soldabout $71.7 million US worth of goldto Mauritius. That's taken as more evidence of countries moving their reserves away fromU.S. dollars after India's purchase of 200 tonnes earlier this month.

The IMF plans to sell 403.3 tonnes to bolster its finances.

Dennis Gartman, editor of the widely read Gartman Letter, told The Lang and O'Leary Exchange on the CBC News Network on Tuesday there's no stopping goldas the U.S. continues to deepen its spending and trade deficits.

"Why is there any reason, given a left-of-centre government that keeps doing, I think, immature and illogical decisions, why would you as a foreign investor want to move money to the United States?" he asked.

'People are moving their reserve assets away from dollars.' Dennis Gartman, Gartman Letter editor

"I think you need to own gold because people are moving their reserve assets away from dollars they're actually moving away from euros and the only currency that can compete happens to be gold.

"I think the decision by the Indian government to buy that huge amount of gold several weeks ago was just the first bit of the iceberg. I think you'll see more. I think you'll see the Chinese being buyers, I think you'll see the Malaysians being buyers, I think you're going to start to see the Russians being buyers. I think you have to diversify away."

December oil closedup44 cents to $79.58 US per barrel after the American Petroleum Institute said Tuesday that crude stocks fell by 4.37 million barrels last week to 333.1 million.