Gold jumped to the highest

Gold jumped to the highest since November after Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said the U.S. central bank can do more to boost growth, fueling concern that inflation will accelerate.

Evans, who doesn’t vote on policy this year, said that unemployment probably won’t fall to 7 percent until 2014. The central bank can “back off” of its accommodation should inflation present a greater threat, he said. Gold rallied 11 percent last quarter, the biggest gain since June 2010, as the Fed announced additional stimulus measures.

Gold futures for December delivery rose 0.7 percent to $1,786.20 an ounce at 9:32 a.m. on the Comex in New York, after jumping to $1,794.40, the highest for a most-active contract since Nov. 14.

Bullion soared 70 percent from the end of December 2008 to June 2011 as the Fed kept borrowing costs at a record low and bought $2.3 trillion of bonds in two rounds of so-called quantitative easing. On Sept. 13, the central bank said it will expand holdings of long-term securities with open-ended purchases of $40 billion of mortgage debt a month and keep the benchmark interest rate near zero percent “at least through mid-2015.”