Gold gains slow down

Gold prices rose slightly on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday as Thursday's dramatic run-up slowed down. Gold added $31 Thursday in response to Wednesday's Federal Reserve meeting minutes release. The Fed strongly suggested it would need to act if the economic recovery failed to improve soon. That set up the expectation the dollar would lose strength, a direct result of a new round of quantitative easing, should that be the step the Fed takes. But gold only managed a 40 cent rise Friday to close out the trading week at $1,673.20 per troy ounce. Silver added 25 cents after a 91 cents jump Thursday. Silver closed at $30.79 an ounce. The dollar put downward pressure on metals Friday with the dollar index up 0.29 percent to 81.61 on the International Exchange. The euro fell to $1.2512 from Thursday's $1.2563. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 78.69 yen from 78.49 yen.