Gold was worth about US$1,395 an ounce on the spot market earlier.

Mining majors were among the biggest market risers on the FTSE100 in London yesterday, where Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) and Glencore (LSE: GLEN) both rose about 1.7%.

BHP (ASX: BHP) was up about 0.8% in lunchtime Australian trade, while Newmont Goldcorp (NYSE: NEM) had closed down 0.3% yesterday in New York.

Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX) gained 0.4% in Toronto.

At the smaller end of town, Toachi Mining (TSXV: TIM) closed 30%, or C1.5c higher, on news of a premium, all-share acquisition by Atico Mining to create a Latin America-focused copper-gold company.

And Western Australian junior Kingswest Resources was up about 42% in afternoon trade on announcing it would acquire the past-producing Menzies gold project from Intermin Resources.