Gold fell on Monday, erasing gains as the dollar recovered against major currencies after a sell-off late last week, while crude oil slipped slightly from record peaks above $126 a barrel. Spot gold traded at $884.30/885.30 an ounce after rising as high as $889.10, compared with $886.30/888.30 in late New York on Friday.
The dollar climbed back towards a two-month high versus a basket of currencies as signs of economic weakness in Australia and New Zealand showed the global slowdown spreading, a shift that is expected to help buoy the battered US currency. Gold usually has an inverse relationship with the dollar as the two compete for investors. Against the yen, the dollar reversed losses to rise above 103 yen.
The euro was weaker at $1.5415. The dollar was at 73.346 against a basket of currencies, after hitting a recent high of 73.895 last week. The run-up followed a fall by more than 6 percent in the first three months of 2008 amid worries about the US credit market.
"The current momentum in gold doesn't look to be strong enough to test the $900 level," said Naomi Suzuki, senior analyst at Sumitomo Corp "Unlike in the first quarter when a weakening dollar gave us the main theme, there is no such clear thing to trade with now," she said.
Gold slipped below $900 in late April and has since showed little resilience, in contrast to crude oil's rally to a new all-time high. Gold hit a record high of $1,030.80 on March 17. US crude oil futures topped $126 per barrel on Monday before falling to $125.67 in Globex electronic trading, down 29 cents from the New York close.
The most active June gold futures contract on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was almost flat at $886.3 an ounce, up $0.5 from the previous close.
The key gold futures for distant April delivery on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange were down 3 yen a gram at 2,961 yen. Spot platinum stood at $2,065.50/2,075.50 an ounce, down from $2,074.00/2,094.00 in New York on Friday, when it rose as high as $2,095, the highest since March 17. Palladium was at $438/446 an ounce, up from $432/440 in late New York. Silver was at $16.82/16.89 an ounce, little changed from New York.
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