By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch)—Gold futures wobbled in electronic trade on Wednesday as renewed concerns about the euro zone added pressure, while solid central bank buying supported prices.
Gold for December delivery GCZ2 -0.17% slipped 10 cents to $1,766.30 an ounce during European trading hours.
Prices for the yellow metal seesawed between small gains and losses as gold gathered inspiration from a downbeat trading day across global financial markets, while central bank buying kept losses at bay.
Most stock indexes and the euro traded lower, as concerns that Greece may run out of money ignited fears of a “Grexit”, while a snap election in Spain’s Catalonia region sent the country’s bond yields higher. See: Spain yields surge on Catalonia, Greek uncertainty.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.31% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, rose to 79.82 from 79.673 late the previous day.
Dollar-denominated commodities tend to fall on a stronger dollar as they get more expensive for holders of other currencies.
Data published Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, however, lent support to prices, as they showed that central banks continued to buy gold in August, with Kazakhstan, Turkey, South Korea and Russia boosting their gold reserves.
“Central banks are likely to continue to buy gold for the remainder of this year, thereby stripping supply from the market and contributing to climbing gold prices,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note.
Elsewhere in the metals complex, prices were mostly lower.
Copper for December delivery HGZ2 -1.30% fell 4 cents, or 1%, to $3.72 a pound, while Silver for the same month SIZ2 -0.41% lost 2 cents, or 0.1%, to $33.92 an ounce.
October platinum PLV2 -0.26% dropped $1.80, or 0.1%, to $1,630.00 an ounce, while palladium for December delivery PAZ2 -1.58% slumped $8.15, or 1.3%, to $632.70 an ounce.
Sara Sjolin is a MarketWatch reporter, based in London.
