By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures fell early Tuesday after surging in the previous session, as the U.S. dollar rose against other major currencies, pressuring the precious metal. Gold for February delivery fell $5.90, or 0.8%, to $763.40 an ounce in electronic trading on Globex. "Gold remains very oversold and continues to consolidate and build a firm base," said Mark O'Byrne, executive director of Gold and Silver Investments Ltd., in a research note. "Technically speaking, gold suffered serious damage in recent weeks," he said. On Monday, gold ended up $17.10 to end at $769.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, getting a boost from soaring oil prices, weakness in the U.S. dollar and President-elect Barack Obama's pledge of a massive new infrastructure investment to buoy the U.S. economy. Gold prices finished last week down 8.2%, the first such loss since the week ended Oct. 31. In the currency markets Tuesday, the U.S. dollar rose against most other major currencies, putting pressure on dollar-denominated commodities such as gold. The dollar index , which tracks the performance of the dollar against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, traded at 86.38, up from 85.618 in North American trading late Monday. See Currencies. Also on the Globex Tuesday, March silver futures fell 28 cents, or 2.8%, to $9.70 an ounce and January platinum futures fell $26.30, or 3%, to $817 an ounce. March palladium futures edged up 85 cents to $176.05 an ounce. March copper futures fell 7 cents, or 4.5%, to $1.43 a pound. South Africa's gold output falls South Africa's gold production fell by 14.4% year-on-year in October, Statistics South Africa reported on its Web site Tuesday. The country's total mining production, however, rose by 3.5% year-on-year in October, with non-gold output rising 6.5%. South Africa is the world's largest platinum producer and the second biggest gold producer after China. South Africa's full-year output could be as much as 1 million ounces lower this year compared with 2007, O'Byrne said, adding that the country's gold output has been falling since 1970. "Power issues with the state-owned power utility Eskom, which suffered a near collapse in the electricity grid in January, have also contributed to the recent decline in production," he said. "Of the world's three biggest gold producers -- China, South Africa and Australia, only China has managed to increase gold production in recent years," O'Byrne said. "This means that the supply/demand balance in gold is becoming increasingly tight and likely to lead to markedly higher prices in the coming years."

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