By Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures edged higher Monday, holding mostly below $1,580 an ounce and finding little reason to break out of their recent trading range after ending last week with a minor gain.
“Some tepid short covering and bargain hunting are featured,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.com, in a note. “However, a firmer U.S. dollar index that is hovering near a seven-month high continues to limit buying interest in gold and silver markets.”
Gold for April delivery GCJ3 +0.06% was up $1.30, or 0.1%, at $1,578.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, trading between $1,574.50 and $1,582.50. Prices finished last week with a 0.3% gain.
“Last Friday’s performance in the gold market was impressive from the bulls’ point of view,” said Wyckoff, pointing out that the stronger U.S. jobs report rallied the U.S. dollar index, but the strength in the greenback failed to significantly pressure on dollar-denominated gold, which ended Friday slightly higher.
“This hints that the gold market bears may now be exhausted on a near-term basis,” Wyckoff said.
Gold on Monday headed higher though the dollar continued to climb. The dollar index DXY +0.06% , which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, rose to 82.816, up 0.2% from late Friday in North American trading.
Among other key Comex metals, silver pulled back after last week’s 1.6% climb. May silver SIK3 -0.49% fell 12 cents, or 0.4%, to $28.83 an ounce.
Copper for delivery in May HGK3 -0.29% lost 1 cent, or 0.4%, to $3.50 a pound. April platinum PLJ3 -0.38% shed $7.10, or 0.4%, to $1,596.80 an ounce and June palladium PAM3 -0.96% fell $7.75, or 1%, to $775 an ounce, after closing Friday at the highest settlement for a most-active contract since September 2011, according to FactSet.
Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @MktwSaefong.
