Gold headed towards its highest close in over a year on Thursday. Futures in the precious metal gained as much as 1.25%, or $16.75 an ounce, to as high as $1,268.45, the highest since last March. This was a part of a broader rally in precious metals that pushed silver to the best levels in about a year, up 1.48% to $17.615 an ounce. The big news in markets Thursday came out of Japan, where the central bank unexpectedly held fire on more stimulus and made no changes to its asset-purchasing program. This sparked a sell-off in global equities and US futures. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve held off on raising interest rates as expected, while giving no clear indication of its intention to raise rates as soon as its meeting in June. Here's a chart showing gold's rise:[Screen Shot 2016 04 28 at 12.03.42 PM]Investing.com Separately, in a note Thursday, RBC Capital Markets highlighted risks to the gold rally, following the latest GFMS survey which showed soft physical demand. "Despite the investor led rally in gold prices at the beginning of the year, the lack of physical follow-through is a fundamental reason for why we think sustained gold bulls will be disappointed by year-end," wrote RBC's Helima Croft and team. "Absent a large and unforeseen risk-off move driving gold higher, we think that prices likely have already peaked this year." NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: The single largest threat to the global economy
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