Gold ended the year on an up note, rising in spite of strong news coming out of Washington, D.C., about the potential for a deal on the looming financial cliff.
Bloomberg reports that gold prices rose an impressive 7 percent on the year, despite failing to near the record price set in September 2011 and suffering the largest quarterly drop in eight years.
The gain marks the 12th straight year of annual gains for the precious metal, the longest run in more than 90 years.
Much of the support for gold has come from the ongoing promise of quantitative easing from both the U.S. and several other important currencies around the world, including the euro and the Japanese yen.
"All that money printing across the globe put a bid under gold," Matt Zeman, a strategist at Kingsview Financial in Chicago, told the news source. "There is overall optimism about the fiscal deal so we are seeing buying across the counter."
In addition, MarketWatch reports that the proposed deal to resolve the fiscal cliff actually proved supportive of gold, as investors seemed to believe that the final agreement would likely still lead to significant debt and thus a weakening dollar.
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