MW:Gold futures slip, but find support above $1,700
By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Gold futures stayed under selling pressure in electronic trading Friday as the U.S. dollar strengthened, but they managed to find support above the $1,700-an-ounce level.
The yellow metal’s December futures GCZ2 -0.34% slipped $8.20, or 0.5%, to $1,707.30 an ounce during Asian business hours, after sliding $3.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange overnight.
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.28% , which gauges the greenback’s performance against a basket of six major global currencies, climbed to 80.121 from 80.052 late in North America Thursday. A stronger dollar tends to pressure prices of commodities that are benchmarked in the currency, including gold.
But the yellow metal was expected by some analysts to find some support around current prices after losing more than 4% over the past one month.
“Gold prices at current levels may elicit demand for gold coins by retail investors given recent declines,” said HSBC analysts led by James Steel.
Meanwhile, December futures for silver SIZ2 -0.71% and copper HGZ2 -0.68% dropped 0.9% to $31.97 an ounce and 0.7% to $3.53 a pound, respectively.
December palladium futures PAZ2 -0.60% dropped 0.7% to $608 an ounce, while platinum for delivery in January PAF3 +0.37% lost 1% to $1,556.80 an ounce.
Varahabhotla Phani Kumar is a reporter in MarketWatch's Hong Kong bureau.
