Gold prices rise for fifth straight week

LONDON, Apr 19 (Reuters): Gold prices rose on Friday and were poised for a fifth straight week of gains, as investors rushed to the safe-haven asset as escalating tensions between Iran and Israel fuelled fears of a wider regional conflict.

Spot gold was up 0.1 per cent at $2,380.68 per ounce as of 1040 GMT, after rising to as high as $2,417.59 earlier in the session. Prices were up over 1 per cent this week.

US gold futures rose 0.1 per cent at $2,396.60.

Explosions echoed over an Iranian city on Friday in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation.

"The geopolitical situation with retaliation of Iran and the latest attack in the Iranian state has raised the risk that the conflict will escalate and is helping safe-haven gold," said Quantitative Commodity Research analyst Peter Fertig.

Spot silver rose 0.1 per cent to $28.25 per ounce and was up 1.4 per cent for the week. Silver is set to outperform gold as its cheaper price and strong fundamentals are likely to see more investment demand, ANZ said in a note.

Spot platinum fell 0.3 per cent to $932.40, and palladium slipped 2 per cent to $1,002.50. Both metals were headed for weekly declines.