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Gold headed towards its highest close in over a year on Thursday.

Futures in the precious metal gained as much as 1.25%, or $16.75 an ounce, to as high as $1,268.45, the highest since last March.

This was a part of a broader rally in precious metals that pushed silver to the best levels in about a year, up 1.48% to $17.615 an ounce.

The big news in markets Thursday came out of Japan, where the central bank unexpectedly held fire on more stimulus and made no changes to its asset-purchasing program. This sparked a sell-off in global equities and US futures.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve held off on raising interest rates as expected, while giving no clear indication of its intention to raise rates as soon as its meeting in June.

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