Gold fell to a three-month low on Tuesday, pressured by the dollar's rise to its highest in nearly 12 years and renewed expectations of a midyear interest rate increase in the United States. Spot gold dropped to its lowest since December 1 at $1,155.60 an ounce in early trading and was down 0.4 percent at $1,161.55 by 2:09 pm EST (1809 GMT), while US gold for April delivery settled down $6.40 an ounce at $1,160.10.
Platinum fell to its lowest since July 2009 at $1,124 an ounce. The metal has dropped 6.3 percent since the start of the year on expectations of lower demand from the automotive sector and higher mine supplies. Gold will remain under pressure, "given that the drums have started beating that the Fed could increase the interest rate soon," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at broker AvaTrade.
Investor positioning indicated a bearish outlook. Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, fell 0.43 percent to 753.04 tonnes on Monday. Spot silver fell 1 percent to its lowest in two months at $15.57 an ounce, then gave back some losses to trade at $15.64. Palladium dropped 2.4 percent to $800.75 an ounce, its biggest fall since January 29.
Comments
Comments are closed.