By Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Gold built on recent gains Monday as investors embarked on a week packed with earnings, economic data and the potential for more geopolitical curveballs.
Gold for June delivery GCM4 -0.04% was last up $1.70, or 0.1%, to $1,302.50 an ounce, while May silver SIK4 -0.61% dipped 6 cents, or 0.3%, to $19.63 an ounce.
Gold ended last week with a third-consecutive gain, marking for the first weekly uptrend in two weeks. The price of gold closed above that key $1,300 level for the first time since April 16.
“Such is the way of gold at the moment, that it has now spooked all the bears out of their positions in exactly the same way it crushed the bulls a few weeks ago,” said David Govett of Marex Spectron.
“The more often this sort of thing happens, the worse the market becomes in terms of sensible trading. It has now turned into a glorified crapshoot,” Govett said. Investors who like this should be down at the casino, he added.
On the geopolitical front, the White House on Monday announced a series of additional sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. It’s imposing sanctions on seven Russian government officials and 17 companies linked to the “inner circle” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Along with a packed earnings slate, some of the data that gold investors will plug into during the week ahead include the monthly jobs report, first-quarter gross domestic product and the latest word out of the Federal Reserve. Read more: Spring tide seen lifting U.S. hiring
Elsewhere in metals trading, July platinum PLN4 +0.01% rose $3.70, or 0.3%, to $1,428 an ounce, while June palladium PAM4 -0.44% advanced 70 cents, or 0.1%, to $811.90 an ounce.
High-grade copper for May delivery HGK4 -0.10% was roughly unchanged at $3.13 a pound.
