By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Gold futures rose in electronic trading during Asian hours Monday as the U.S. dollar moved lower, recovering a portion of losses made in regular trading at the end of last week.
Gold for February delivery GCG3 +0.31% advanced $4.40 to $1,664.90 an ounce in electronic trading Monday.
Some support for gold on Monday came from a weaker U.S. dollar. The ICE dollar index DXY -0.13% , which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, traded at 79.409, down from 79.566 in late North American trading Friday.
Gold’s gain came after the benchmark futures fell $17.40 on Friday to settle at $1,660.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after the release of stronger-than-expected Chinese inflation data.
However, the metal notched a 0.7% for the past week. Read: Gold settles lower for the day, up for the week
“Lack of conviction has tainted gold price action, and gold has struggled to establish its identity as a safe-haven asset,” said commodity strategists at Barclays Capital.
“The hurdles for gold are mounting, from dollar strength to a softer physical market, but in our view, a number of positive macro catalysts still exist that could push prices significantly higher,” they said.
Potential triggers for gold included the U.S. debt-ceiling debate and other fiscal issues, which the strategists said “are far from fully resolved” and pose a risk to the U.S. credit rating.
“Risks are skewed towards the near term, [and] we believe that the first quarter of 2013 will be key in setting the tone of trading,” the strategists said.
Around the wider metals complex, silver for March delivery SIH3 +0.80% advanced 25 cents to $30.66 an ounce.
April platinum PLJ3 -2.34% climbed $7.50 to $1,638.70 an ounce, while March palladium PAH3 -0.51% advanced $2.40 to $703.85 an ounce.
March copper HGH3 +0.70% rose 2 cents to $3.68 per pound.
