Gold futures moved fractionally lower Wednesday, treading water below $900 an ounce as rising stock markets boosted investors' risk appetite and reduced the metal's investment appeal.
Stocks rose on Wall Street, following on Tuesday's big rally, while European and Asian shares also scored gains.
Meanwhile, global currencies mostly gained on the dollar. The greenback and gold are often seen as safe havens for investors at times of volatility in financial markets. See Currencies.
Gold for April delivery, the most active contract, was last at $895.50 an ounce, down 40 cents. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold closed Tuesday's trading below $900 for the first time since Feb. 9.
"Given improvement in risk appetite and absence of significant ETF inflows we could see the metal extend lower to target technical chart support around $883," wrote James Moore, analyst at TheBullionDesk.com
A rising tide of inflows into gold exchange-traded funds have stalled recently. Holdings in SPDR Gold Shares the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by gold, remained unchanged at 1,028.99 tons on Tuesday, according to the latest data from the fund.
SPDR gold holdings hit an all-time high of 1.029.29 on Feb. 26 but haven't seen gains since then.
As for trading in SPDR Gold the ETF rose 0.3% to stand at $88.37.
Despite gold's recent losses, some analysts see prospects for appreciation over the long term.
"Macroeconomic and systemic risk and the real and growing medium-term threat posed by inflation means gold's long-term fundamentals remain sound," wrote Mark O'Byrne, executive director at Gold and Silver Investments.
There was more gloomy economic news Wednesday. The number of completed U.S. foreclosures in February reached 121,756, the highest monthly total since the current economic crisis began, according to data from Foreclosures.com.
The figure was a 67% increase from the 72,694 reported in January and was also well above the previous monthly high of 104,243 set last September.
In other metals trading, May silver rose 0.9% to $12.65 an ounce, while April platinum added 0.7% to $1,051.50 an ounce and the June contract for palladium gained 0.5% to $198 an ounce. May copper fell, off 0.7% to $1.6735 a pound.
Among metals-sector equity benchmarks, shares of Barrick Gold Corp. gained 2.2% to $26.63 and South Africa's Gold Fields Ltd. rose 2.1% to $11.07, while Goldcorp Inc. added 2.8% to $27.28.
The Amex Gold Bugs Index which tracks the share prices of major gold companies, rose 2.8% to 266.69.
The iShares Gold Trust ETF gained 0.2% to $88.41, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF rose 0.4% to $12.49.
