Gold fell for the first time in four days as a rally in equities reduced demand for the metal as an alternative investment. Stocks in Europe and Asia, and U.S. index futures climbed as the Group of 20 vowed to clean up toxic financial assets and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a depression has been avoided. Gold has dropped 2 percent this year as the MSCI World Index of equities gained 2.1 percent. “Stock markets have rallied the last few days quite significantly,” Jesper Dannesboe, a senior commodity strategist at Societe Generale in London, said by phone. “The market is not as pessimistic” and some investors will sell assets perceived to carry less risk, such as gold, he said. Gold for immediate delivery dropped $6.03, or 0.7 percent, to $923.72 an ounce as of 11:02 a.m. in London. April futures fell $5.90, or 0.6 percent, to $924.20 an ounce in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division. The metal slipped to $923 in the morning “fixing” in London, used by some mining companies to sell production, from $928 at the afternoon fixing on March 13. Spot prices, down for three consecutives weeks, reached a record $1,032.70 a year ago. Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators decreased their net-long position in New York gold futures by 9 percent in the week ended March 10, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 144,788 contracts on the Comex. Currency Alternative Still, gold prices may rebound this week on demand for an alternative to currencies, according to 20 of 30 traders, investors and analysts surveyed from Tokyo to Chicago last week. Four respondents advised selling and six were neutral. Finance chiefs from the G-20 this weekend vowed to work together to clean up the toxic assets that helped trigger the global financial crisis and led banks to rack up more that $1.2 trillion in losses. Bernanke said in an interview broadcast by CBS Corp. yesterday that the risk of depression has been “averted.” Barclays Plc today rose as much as 22 percent in London trading after reporting a “strong” start to the year. “News that a previously troubled bank is now in positive earnings territory would not be helpful for gold,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Jon Bergtheil wrote today in a note. “News that further toxic waste has been uncovered at some bank or other could set gold on an upward trend.” Assets in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, advanced 1.5 percent to a record 1,056.82 metric tons on March 13, according to figures on the company’s Web site. The fund’s holdings on March 12 exceeded the 1,040.1 tons held by Switzerland in December. Luxury Goods “Luxury-goods demand and gold jewelry demand in the mature economies are in dire straits and gold is relying almost entirely on investment demand for its upkeep,” Bergtheil said. Among other metals for immediate delivery in London, silver dropped 1.2 percent to $13.065 an ounce. Platinum added 0.4 percent to $1,061.50 an ounce, and palladium was 0.1 percent higher at $199.25 an ounce.

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