Silver lower after three-week high on previous session
By Claudia Assis and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold prices traded lower Tuesday, falling alongside the broader commodities market after two sessions of gains.
Gold futures for June delivery GCM2 -0.51% shed $2.80, or 0.2%, to $1,676.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The metal gained 0.5% on Monday.
“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,” they said.
Silver tracked gold lower, with the May contract SIK2 -0.78% down 18 cents, or 0.6%, to $32.91 an ounce. Silver ended Monday at a three-week high.
Copper, which had traded higher, was recently veering between small gains and losses. May copper HGK2 -0.23% lost less than a penny, or 0.1%, to $3.92 a pound.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday reported that factory orders rose 1.3% in February. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected an increase of 1.5%.
January factory orders were revised down to a 1.1% decline, from a previous estimate of a decrease of 1%.
Platinum bucked the trend, however, while palladium squandered earlier gains and turned lower.
Palladium for June delivery PAM2 -0.74% declined $3.20, or 0.5%, to $655.50 an ounce, while platinum for July delivery PLN2 +0.20% advanced $6.90, or 0.4%, to $1,656 an ounce.
