Gold nudged up on Thursday, adding to gains from the previous session on concern about the global economy and the financial sector, as well as physical buying in India, the world's largest consumer. But the market lacked momentum to push towards the key $900 mark, weighed down by stalling investment in the world's largest goldbacked exchange-traded fund.
Buying from India ahead of the Akshaya Tritya festival on April 27, an auspicious time for gold buying, continues to lend support. Also, while some risk appetite has returned in recent weeks with stocks recovering from their lows, investor preference for gold as a safe-haven asset remained intact.
Akshaya Prasad, the infrastructure head of financial services bigwig Goldman Sachs, has resigned after his nine-year stint at the company. He has joined private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital, where he has been appointed the co-head of Greater Pacific's India business. 
In its endeavor to protect domestic industry from a gush of cheap imports from China, Thailand, Japan, and the US, the Indian government has provisionally imposed 'anti-dumping' duty on some of the high-end stainless steel products. To be effective for a six-month period, up to October 21, 2009, the anti-dumping duty would be payable in Indian rupees. 
Country's jewellery export witnessed modest growth of 0.45% to $21.11 billion in FY09 despite low demand from traditional markets of US and European countries. The sector performed well in first half of the fiscal. However, exports dipped by 18.9% during the second half under the impact of global slowdown and higher gold prices.
Crude settled up 30 cents at $48.85 on Wednesday, as early gains on U. S.
Base metals witnessed range bound trading session and ended the day with negative bias, Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell $150 to $4,390 per tone and metals like Zinc and Nickel also went down sharply.
