After seven straight days of losses, gold futures closed higher Thursday, bolstering confidence in the metals sector, as the dollar faltered and the stock market rallied

Gold for August delivery closed up $3.80 at $570.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, having earlier touched a high of $579.50.

Analysts said the move is the start of a rebound, after a healthy period of correction.

"I feel much better with gold at $570 rather than $750," said Amaury Conti, equity trader at investment advisor Austin Calvert-Flavin. "The drop was a correction in a bullish market. Now that the price of gold has gone down to a more reasonable level, people are seeing the opportunity to get involved again."

Gold has fallen about 21% from its May peak above $730 an ounce, swept up in a broad commodity sell-off.

"Thanks to the aggressive quest for profits by hedge funds, gold was being "pushed" along for the last six or nine months," said Jon Nadler, investment products analyst at bullion dealers Kitco.com. "The past month has also witnessed the opposite effect taking place, as the exit from gold (by the opportunity-driven funds) has brought down values to a level that almost has the staunchest of its supporters spooked."

Silver ended up 23.5 cents at $9.97 an ounce. Platinum finished up $22 at $1,160.90 an ounce and palladium added $13.15 to $305.80 an ounce. Copper was up 15.9 cents at $3.215 a pound.

"Despite their size, we regard the base metal price moves as corrections," said Citigroup analyst Alan Heap in a note to investors on Thursday. Spot prices remain above one- and two-year averages and supply-demand fundamentals continue to support relatively high prices, Heap said.

At the same time, Heap cautioned that rate hikes pose several risks for commodities, including slowing global economic growth and boosting the dollar.

Ned Schmidt, editor of The Value View Gold Report, said the dollar is in a long-term bear market against other major currencies. Schmidt pointed to the rally of the Chinese yuan in the past few sessions as an indication that the dollar will continue to weaken, which would be good news for gold.

"Investors should be buying gold and silver this summer at bargain prices," Schmidt said.

Gold supply and demand fundamentals are very positive, said Ross Norman, director of TheBullionDesk.com. "I expect gold will make its way toward $600 over the next few days, perhaps tomorrow," Norman said. "It's looking very cheap now and people will see this as an attractive opportunity to buy."

John Person, president of Nationalfutures.com, is also bullish. The latest data from the Nymex show inventories of gold up 236,559 troy ounces at 8.03 million troy ounces as of late Wednesday after being unchanged on Tuesday, indicating that prices have been falling in an environment of steady supplies, Person said.

Part of the recent sell-off can be attributed to quarterly window dressing and profit-taking by commodity investment funds, said Person.

"From a fundamental perspective we still have higher energy prices. Despite the recent sell-off in crude, prices remain above 68.00 per barrel," he said. And while tensions with Iran appear to have eased, at least for now, uncertainty over the direction of the dollar "adds to the attractiveness to own gold as it acts as a universal currency to investors around the globe."

Crude closed up 36 cents at $69.50 a barrel, after trading above the $70 level during the session.

The dollar, meanwhile, had a volatile day after a series of data releases and a report showing a steep slowdown in capital flows.

On the supply side, silver inventories were down 2.5 million troy ounces at 107.6 million as of late Wednesday. Copper supplies fell by 196 short tons to 8.646 short tons.