Gold and other precious metals fell on Thursday as commodity funds sold to square books at the end of October, and as investors kept selling after the Federal Reserve's latest policy outlook offered few surprises. Gold's daily decline was the second biggest among commodities. For the month, gold ended October just 0.2 percent lower, its decline limited by economic uncertainty over a partial US government shutdown and Washington's delay in raising the US debt ceiling.
"We are seeing some liquidation on the dollar rise and higher Treasury yields. Uncertainty in the equities market is also prompting some gold investors to take profits at the end of the month," said Tom Power, senior commodity broker at RJO Futures. Spot gold was down 1.4 percent at $1,323.69 an ounce by 4:07 pm EDT (2007 GMT). During the session, gold hit a one-week low at $1,318.79.
US gold futures for December delivery settled down $25.60 at $1,323.70 an ounce, with trading volume largely in line with its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Silver underperformed gold and was the biggest decliner in the 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/CoreCommodity CRB index. It fell 3.3 percent at $21.90 an ounce, its biggest one-day loss in more than a month. Spot platinum was down 1.5 percent at $1,447.24 an ounce, while spot palladium fell 1 percent to $735.22 an ounce.