As gold hits new records, Barrick market cap surpasses major S&P 500 companies

For the second day, soaring gold prices helped gold stocks again set records on North American stock exchanges, as Barrick’s market cap exceeded that of major S&P 500 companies.

RENO, NV - 

As gold prices and gold stocks again set records Thursday, the world's number one gold miner, Barrick, found itself in the enviable position of possessing a total market cap that exceeded that of such S&P 500 stalwarts as Caterpillar, Home Depot, Honeywell and Merrill Lynch.

Meanwhile, as spot gold futures hit $870/oz before settling at $869.10/oz on both the NYMEX and COMEX, gold producers such as Barrick, Agnico Eagle and Kinross saw their stocks hit historical highs Thursday.

While some precious metals analysts were suggesting gold could hit $900/oz, the consensus at day's end appeared to be that an average of $750/oz gold was probably more plausible.

As Barrick hit a record market cap of US$48 billion, Wall Street analysts were astonished that a gold miner has become a bigger company by market cap than Caterpillar, Honeywell, Home Depot or Merrill Lynch. For the second day in a row, Barrick hit a record high of US$49.33 on the NYSE before ending Thursday's trading day at $48.71/sh, a 5.84% increase over the previous trading day, with a volume of 21,242,088 shares traded. In the meantime, Barrick stock increased 22 percent over the last three trading sessions on the TSX.

Other stocks that benefited from the two-day surge in gold prices were Yamana Gold, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold, Newmont Mining, Goldcorp and Agnico Eagle. Gold companies tracked by the TSX global gold index hit their highest levels since May 2006.

Meanwhile, crude oil again hovered around the $100 per barrel mark for a second day Thursday as the U.S. crude oil stockpiles report revealed that crude supplies had dropped 4 million barrels. The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration reported Thursday that crude inventories fell by 4 million barrels last week, far more than the 1.7 million decline analysts surveyed by the Dow Jones Newswire had anticipated