Mr. Hunter said buying yesterday was dominated by hedge funds and other professional investors looking for a haven. They boosted their exposure mostly through futures contracts, exchange-traded funds and other means that do not require them to take delivery of the metal.

“Every time you turn on the TV or open a newspaper, there’s another story that is supportive of the gold price,” he said “So there’s a real increase in geopolitical uncertainty . . . and that is attracting some buyers into both gold and, to a lesser extent, silver.”

Contracts for the August delivery of the precious metal hit a six-week high of $657 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange before closing the day at $651.20. The close marked a jump of $8.10 or 1.2 percent from Tuesday and of 15 percent from the trough of $566.50 gold hit June 14 after joining in the global market rout and plunging from a mid-May high of about $731.

The British analyst figures that the presence of hedge funds and other more speculative buyers has made the gold market much more volatile and active. So not only does bullion have the potential to hit new highs some time this year, “it could happen in a month.”