Gold slipped 2 percent on Wednesday as the dollar gained and US stocks advanced, while investors kept a close eye on China's efforts to support its economy. Gold's losses, combined with sliding copper prices, also hurt sentiment in the more industrial precious metals. Silver fell 5.2 percent to $13.93 per ounce, its lowest since August 2009. Palladium, mainly used in emissions control systems for cars, trucks and other vehicles, fell 3.4 percent to a five-year low of $518.00 per ounce.
"Negative sentiment in precious metals in the past two days is due to a stronger dollar and a partial rebound in stock markets," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said. Spot gold fell as much as 2 percent to a one-week low of $1,117.35 an ounce, but was down 1.2 percent at $1,126.66 by 3:03 pm EDT (1903 GMT). It was its third straight decline from last week's seven-week high. US gold for December delivery settled down 1.2 percent, at $1,124.60 an ounce.
"Gold is right now suffering from the aftermath of Monday," said director of research for ETF Securities in New York, referring to Monday's near 9-percent dive in China shares that caused world stock and commodity markets to plunge. Platinum was the only precious metal trading in positive territory, having turned up 0.3 percent at $978 an ounce.