MW: Gold futures swerve between small gains and losses
By Claudia Assis and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures weaved in and out of the red Monday as investors seemed sidelined after a strong rally last week brought about by the Federal Reserve’s latest bond-buying plan.
Gold for December delivery GCZ2 -0.11% added 20 cents to $1,772.90 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The metal gained 1.9% last week as plans by the Federal Reserve to launch fresh monetary easing measures spurred demand for gold.
Gold is seen as a hedge against inflation and tends to benefit amid fears of currency debasement.
Accommodative policy stances by central banks could provide more support for gold, said Anne-Laure Tremblay, a precious metals strategist with BNP Paribas.
“Additional market liquidity and higher risk appetite are the two main factors that underpin our positive price forecast in the fourth-quarter of 2012, and first-half of 2013,” Tremblay wrote in a research report.
The dollar wasn’t offering much of a direction for gold, trading slightly weaker after being stronger earlier. The ICE dollar index DXY +0.06% , which measures the U.S. unit against a basket of six major currencies, fell to 78.823, down slightly from 78.864 in late North American trading on Friday.
Dollar-denominated commodities tend to fall on stronger dollar, as they get more expensive for other currency-holders.
Other precious and base metals, for their turn, mostly declined Monday, as weak Chinese equity markets was partly “putting the brakes on the upswing,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note.
“We do not see this as a trend reversal, however, but more as a brief time-out from the current upwards trend,” they said.
Silver for December delivery SIZ2 -0.52% lost 20 cents, or 0.6%, to $34.465 an ounce. Copper for the same month HGZ2 -0.82% lost 3 cents, or 0.8%, to $3.80 a pound.
October platinum PLV2 -1.07% dropped $21.80, or 1.3%, to $1,691.90 an ounce. December palladium PAZ2 -0.49% declined $5.50, or 0.8%, to $693.80 an ounce.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London. Virginia Harrison in Sydney contributed to this report.
