By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Gold futures declined on Monday, retreating from sharp gains made in the previous session, after Europe announced a plan to shore up its fragile banking sector and economy.
Gold for August delivery GCQ2 -0.66% declined $11.20, or 0.7%, to trade at $1.592.40 an ounce in electronic trading hours on the Comex division of the New York Stock Exchange.
On Friday, the precious metal rallied surged $53.80, or 3.5%, to settle at $1,604.20 an ounce, as investors cheered a plan to stabilize Europe’s banking sector.
As optimism returned to markets, the U.S. dollar fell sharply on Friday.
However, Sue Trinh, strategist at RBC Capital Markets, noted that the U.S. currency staged a turnaround in Monday’s Asian trading session and S&P futures “trickled into negative territory.”
The ICE dollar index DXY +0.26% reached 81.777 from 81.658 in late North American trading on Friday.
S&P 500 futures SPU2 +0.05% were recently down 2.8 points at 1,353.50, Nasdaq 100 futures NDU2 +0.03% were down 6.5 points at 2,603.25, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures DJU2 -0.07% were down 27 points at 12,781.
`No specific catalyst’
“There was no specific catalyst for the risk retracement,” said Trinh, who added that after the euro EURUSD -0.6178% and the Australian dollar AUDUSD -0.0487% rallied sharply on Friday, “some profit-taking ahead of a very busy macro calendar this week was not entirely unexpected.”
As well as key U.S. jobs data due Friday, U.S. manufacturing data are due later Monday while three major central banks are due to announce interest-rate decisions this week.
Elsewhere in the metals complex, copper HGN2 -0.62% for July delivery lost 4 cents to trade at $3.46 a pound.
July silver SIN2 -0.54% declined 35 cents to $27.27an ounce. Platinum PLN2 -0.90% for delivery in the same month fell $12.40 to $1,440 an ounce. September palladium PAU2 -0.80% futures were down $2.75 at $581.80 an ounce.
Sarah Turner is MarketWatch's bureau chief in Sydney.
