By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Gold prices traded slightly lower, falling Tuesday along with the broader commodities market after two sessions of gains.
Gold futures for June delivery GCM2 -0.24% shed $1.60, or 0.1%, to $1,678.20 an ounce, giving back some of Monday’s gains inspired by positive manufacturing data in the U.S.
“Gold has now found itself without sufficient investor appetite to gain upward momentum but also a soft floor in light of weak physical demand,” said analysts at Barclays. “Demand from China has started to pick up but is only notably responsive to sharp price drops, while gold imports into Turkey have more than halved over the quarter.”
Further, the yellow metal tracked a pullback in other commodity prices. Carsten Fritsch, commodity analyst at Commerzbank, pointed to “selling of speculative investors, who cut long positions after yesterday’s gains and the failure to test the $1,700 handle.”
Also Tuesday, May silver SIK2 -0.87% shed 0.6% to $32.90 an ounce, while copper for the same month HGK2 -0.60% lost 0.4% to $3.90 a pound.
Bucking the trend, palladium for June delivery PAM2 +0.25% rose 0.4% to $661.40 an ounce, and platinum for July delivery PLN2 +0.34% took on 0.4% to $1,661.40 an ounce.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London.
