Gold fell 1 percent in active trade on Tuesday, as the euro's slide on worries over Spain's debt prompted investors to sell the precious metal along with other dollar-sensitive commodities. Trading volume in US futures more than doubled its 30-day average, boosted by active position rolling from the June to August contracts before June delivery period starts as US traders returned after Monday's Memorial Day holiday.
Spot gold was down 1.4 percent at $1,551.50 an ounce by 2:42 pm EDT (1842 GMT). US gold futures for June delivery settled down $20.20 at $1,548.70. Volume topped 450,000 lots, preliminary Reuters data showed, near a 2012 high of 470,000 contracts traded on January 26.
Among other precious metals, silver fell 2.1 percent to $27.80 an ounce. Spot platinum was down 0.7 percent at $1,421.99 an ounce, while spot palladium inched up 15 cents at $601.97 an ounce.