MW:Gold, silver futures slip in electronic trading
By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Gold futures slipped in electronic trading on Monday, part of a broader sell-off across commodity and most Asian equity markets.
Gold for April delivery GCJ2 -0.36% dropped $3.30, or 0.2%, to $1,708.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange during Asian trading hours.
The precious metal gained for three straight sessions by the close of regular trading on Friday, in part driven by expectations for the restructure of Greek debt and hopes for fresh bailout funds.
On Friday, Greece announced a bond exchange deal with its private creditors to which paves the way for the country to receive a second tranche of rescue funding.
However, concerns about the Greek economy — and the financial health of other European peripheral nations — haven’t gone away. Read more on Asian equities.
“Indications suggest that the new Greek bonds that will replace those exchanged are trading at very substantial discounts to face value in the ‘grey’ market. This presumably reflects fears that Greece will have to undertake a further deep restructuring of its debt in the future,” said economists at Capital Economics.
Among the broader metals complex, silver for May delivery SIK2 -0.81% dropped 22 cents, or 0.6%, to $33.99 an ounce.
May copper HGK2 -0.48% declined 2 cents, or 0.4%, to $3.84 a pound.
April platinum futures PLJ2 -0.38% shed $5.90, or 0.4%, to $1,679.00 an ounce, while palladium for June delivery PAM2 -0.54% lost $4.70, or 0.6%, to $705.25 an ounce.
Virginia Harrison is a MarketWatch reporter based in Sydney.
