The factors helped boost the gold price above US$1,310 an ounce in the past 24 hours and it remains above the psychological barrier, trading about $1,304/oz earlier on the spot market.

Market futures are again pointing to optimism in Toronto but lower starts in key US and European markets today.

China's economic slowdown deepened in the first two months of the year, Bloomberg reported, noting low gains in industrial output and retail sales but on the upside, fixed asset and property investment both jumping.

Global market indices were higher yesterday but mining stocks were mixed.

Glencore (LSE: GLEN) gained more than 1% in London yesterday while in Canada, Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) was off 1.5%.

Toronto's gold equity moves were bookended by Novagold Resources' (TSX: NG) rise of 4.3% and SSR Mining's (TSX: SSRM) drop of 6.6%, as it priced a US$200 million convertible note offering at a conversion price of about $18.48 a share.

Among the juniors, Pilbara conglomerate gold play Novo Resources (TSXV: NVO) gained about 13%, prompting a query from the regulator, to which it said it was unaware of any undisclosed material change that would account for the recent increase in market activity.

In Australian trade, BHP (ASX: BHP) was up about 0.7% at the time of writing in a positive afternoon for diversified mining equities.

The S&P/ASX200 gold equities were also up collectively 0.55% in afternoon trade, led by Regis Resources' (ASX: RRL) rise of about 2.7%.