Gold declined to the lowest level since Jan. 4 and was poised for the biggest weekly loss this year after filings showed investors George Soros and Louis Moore Bacon cut stakes in exchange-traded products in the last quarter. Gold for immediate delivery fell as much as 0.3 percent to $1,630.60 an ounce and was at $1,633.55 at 11:48 a.m. in Singapore. Prices are 2 percent lower this week, poised for the biggest retreat since the period to Dec. 21. Bullion for April delivery lost 0.1 percent to $1,633.30 on the Comex. Soros and Bacon reported lower stakes in ETPs backed by gold in the quarter, the filings showed. Gold has dropped 2.5 percent this year on speculation global growth is set to improve, curbing haven demand. While the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained to a five-year high yesterday, traders are the most bearish on gold in more than a year, a Bloomberg survey shows. “The world isn’t falling apart, so why would you move into gold?� said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive officer of Barratt’s Bulletin, a commodity newsletter in Sydney. Investors are “jumping on board equities,� he said. Twenty analysts surveyed by Bloomberg this week expect gold to fall next week, while 11 were bullish and three were neutral, making the proportion of bears the highest since Dec. 30, 2011. Hedge funds cut bets on higher prices by 56 percent since October and are approaching their least bullish stance on gold since August, government data show. Paulson Steady Paulson & Co., the largest investor in SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest fund backed by the metal, kept its stake at 21.8 million shares in the quarter, according to a filing yesterday, while Lone Pine Capital LLC, the hedge fund run by Stephen Mandel Jr., and Scout Capital Management LLC sold their entire holdings. Spot gold lost 5.5 percent in the three months to Dec. 31, the biggest decline since the third quarter of 2008. Growth will accelerate in U.S. and China, the two largest economies, in the coming quarters, according to more than 100 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In the U.S., claims for jobless benefits dropped 27,000 to 341,000 in the week to Feb. 9, fewer than any of the 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected, the Labor Department said yesterday. Silver for immediate delivery was little changed at $30.375 an ounce. The metal is poised to drop 3.3 percent this week, the biggest decline since Dec. 21. Spot platinum declined 0.8 percent to $1,697.25 an ounce, poised for a weekly loss. Palladium fell 0.2 percent to $764 an ounce, trimming a weekly advance. To contact the reporter for this story: Phoebe Sedgman in Melbourne at psedgman2@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net

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