Gold hits record high, silver at 30 year peak

LONDON: Spot gold rose to a record high on Friday at $1,296.85 per ounce, propelled by continued concerns about global economic health, while silver rushed to its highest since October 1980.

At 0756 GMT, spot gold was last quoted at $1,295.15, and silver stood at $21.30, having hit a high of $21.34 earlier -- its loftiest since October 1980, according to Reuters data.

Yen priced gold hit its highest since late June.

TOI

Sensex slides 28 pts on profit booking, weak global cues

MUMBAI: Extending its losses for the third straight session the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Friday slipped by nearly 28 points in the opening trade on profit booking amid weak global cues.

The 30-share index declined by 27.49 points to 19,833.52 level in the first five minutes of trade. The index had lost over 140 points in the previous two sessions.

Similarly, the wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty also shed 8.35 points to 5,951.55.

Analysts said that the market sentiment dampened as investors booked profits and preferred shifting their money to the primary market.

Besides, weak cues from Asian markets after overnight losses on the US markets too weighed on the Indian bourses, they added.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was down 0.07%, while Japanese Nikkei index fell by 1.25% in the morning trade. The US Dow Jones Industrial average ended 0.72 per cent down in yesterday's trade.

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Prithvi-II fails to take off in user's trial

BALASORE (Orissa): India's indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II ballistic missile failed to take off during a user trial from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur off the Orissa coast on Friday apparently due to a technical problem, defence sources said.

Though the ITR authorities were not immediately available for comment, defence sources said the sophisticated missile could not take off during the planned trial from the launch complex-III of the test range due to some "technical snag."

"The failure to lift Prithvi-II was due to a snag either in the main missile or the sub-system, including the launcher," they said, adding the test-fire was slated to be held as part of user's trial by the armed forces.

During Friday's planned trial, a noise could be heard as smoke billowed from the launch site around the time of the blasting.

Efforts were on to ascertain the exact reason behind the failure on the part of the missile to take off and defence scientists were examining the matter thoroughly, they said.

The last four user's trials of the surface-to-surface missile were successfully conducted during the about one year period, from the same site in the ITR.

The last trial was conducted on June 18, this year. The test firing of the state-of-the-art missile, which has already been inducted into armed forces, was planned as users trial by the specially formed "Strategic Force Command" (SFC), the sources said.

TOI