Gold recorded a rise of Rs 405 to touch Rs 12,865 per 10 gm in Mumbai. The price of yellow metal breached the psychological level of Rs 13,000-mark in Kolkata after a gap of 10 days, while it was just of short of Rs 20 from the Rs 13k in Delhi.

Prices of gold have gone up by more than Rs 1,500 since January 11, 2008, when it closed at Rs 11,355 per 10 gm in Mumbai bullion market. Gold prices firmed up in the global market due to the rise in oil prices and weakness of the U.S. Dollar against the Euro.

New York - The world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, reported the largest quarterly profit in US history Thursday on the back of record oil prices.

Exxon earned 14.83 billion dollars in the quarter, an increase of 60 per cent on the same quarter of 2007.

Sales increased by 35 per cent to 137.74 billion dollars in the same period, the company reported from its headquarters in Houston in the US state of Texas, far exceeding analysts' forecasts.

Exxon Mobil held the previous quarterly profit record, with 11.7 billion dollars in the second quarter of 2008.

Reliance Money, a unit of Reliance Capital and part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, has sought permission to acquire an additional 16% stake in the National Multi-Commodity Exchange (NMCE).

Last month, Reliance Money picked up 10% stake in NMCE and now the firm is seeking approval from the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) and Ministry of Consumer Affairs for an additional 16 per cent stake in NMCE within the next three months.

Reliance Money, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has informed that it has obtained approval from Ministry of Consumer Affairs to acquire a 10% stake in the National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (NMCE) Board.

The latest development will mark company’s foray into the national commodity exchange space that is expected to cross an annual turnover of Rs 74 lakh-crore (volume) by next year.

Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company has rolled out a commodity focused fund in the Indian market.

This will be the first commodity-focused fund from Birla Sun Life AMC. The primary investment objective of the scheme is to provide long term capital appreciation by investing in securities of domestic and overseas commodity firms.