US-Dollar Spot Gold prices slipped back from a near 11-month high early in London on Thursday, bouncing off $970 an ounce as world stock markets held flat, down almost 5% for the week so far.

A surge in after-hours trade late on Wednesday saw the Gold Price in Dollars shoot within a few cents of mid-July's top above $987 an ounce.

Prior to that, gold's very highest prices came amid the Bear Stearns collapse of March 2008.

Versus the other major world currencies last night, the metal broke new record highs for British, European, Swiss, Canadian and Australian savers now Ready to Buy  Gold.

"Higher highs and higher lows keep the bullish trending price action in place," says a technical note from Scotia Mocatta, the London market maker.

"Above $988 brings the all time high at $1,032 into play. Down side support comes in at the previous major high of $930."

Also noting resistance at last night's high, "Gold has rallied nearly 25% since the middle of Jan.," says today's note from fellow precious-metal dealers Mitsui.

That "phenomenal pace has some participants questioning how sustainable it is."

On the commodity markets this morning – down by nearly two-thirds since July '08 according to the GSCI index – crude oil jumped almost 3% to break $35 per barrel once more.

Base metal prices also rose in London trade, while soft commodities crept higher.

Government bonds meantime continued to sell lower from yesterday's sharp drop in long-dated prices. That pushed the yield offered by 30-year US Treasuries up to 3.77%, fully one percentage point above the record low hit two months ago.

After the Federal Reserve said it would buy US corporate debt ahead of government bonds, the Bank of Japan today announced a ¥1 trillion plan to support private-sector debt issues.

From the start of March until the end of Sept., the central bank will buy corporate bond rated single-A and above. This morning it voted unanimously to keep overnight lending rates at 0.1% for the coming month.

Tokyo Gold Futures for settlement in Dec. '09 rose 1.4%, hitting a near 5-month high even as the Japanese Yen slipped on the currency market.

The Nikkei stock index crept 0.3% higher.

"We're probably going to have to print more and more money...and the more money you print, the less valuable it is," said Philip Gotthelf, author and head of the Equidex Brokerage Group in New York, to Bloomberg Television today.

"So smart investors are moving into hard assets that can hedge against those kinds of devaluations."

Considering Gold's Surge During the Current Credit Deflation, "Gold represents a safe haven in a deflationary panic market," believes Gotthelf, "as well as in an anticipatory inflationary market."

Here in London on Thursday, the Bank of England – which telegraphed its determination to use "Quantitative Easing" to the City this week – reported a fresh surge in the UK money supply.

Provisional figures showed the broad M4 measure of the money supply leaping by £48.5 billion ($69bn), greater by two-thirds than the past six-monthly average.

The year-on-year growth rate in net private lending ticked down to 15.0% from Dec.'s 15.8% growth.