By Barbara Kollmeyer and Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) — Gold futures edged higher on Tuesday, moving further from lows reached at the end of last week, when the precious metal saw its weakest close in six months.
Gold for delivery in April GCJ3 -1.70% rose $4 to $1,613.50 an ounce in electronic trading on Globex.
U.S. markets were closed for Presidents Day on Monday.
So far this week, the precious metal has staged a bit of a recovery from Friday’s selloff, when gold fell $26, or 1.6%, to settle at $1,609.50 — a closing low not seen since Aug. 15.
Discussing last week’s gold weakness, strategists at Commerzbank said “investors on the futures market are likely to be largely to blame, speculative financial investors having slashed their net long positions by 15% to 66.6 thousand contracts in the week to Feb. 12.”
That marked the lowest level in seven months, the strategists said.
The return of Chinese investors from a week-long holiday for the Lunar New Year may offer some support to gold. Read: Could China ride to gold’s rescue this week?
“Gold bugs would argue that last week’s pullback has opened up the opportunity to buy the metals at cheaper prices, and that, over the long term, prices should rise,” said GFT Markets technical analyst Fawad Razaqzada.
Around the wider metals complex, silver for delivery in March SIH3 -1.90% rose 21 cents to $30.06 an ounce.
Palladium for March delivery PAH3 -0.05% jumped $13.50 to $766.65 an ounce, while April platinum PLJ3 +0.26% rose $16.30 to $1,694 an ounce.
However, March copper HGH3 -1.65% fell 6 cents to $3.68 a pound.
Barbara Kollmeyer is an editor for MarketWatch in Madrid. Follow her on Twitter @bkollmeyer.
Sarah Turner is MarketWatch's bureau chief in Sydney. Follow her on Twitter @SarahTurnerMKTW.
