Gold Drops as USD Rises on Fed Member Comments

Gold traded at a one-month low Monday, adding to a nearly 3% slide last week that marked the precious metal’s toughest stretch so far in 2016. Gold remains pinned to a stronger dollar in the near term.

June gold  traded $2.50, or 0.2%, at $1,219.10 an ounce. The April contract, which has now been passed up by June as the most-active contract, finished Thursday trading at $1,221.60, its lowest finish since late February. The SPDR Gold Trust is little changed near $116.35 in premarket action.

On Thursday, gold futures logged their third straight weekly loss as of the preholiday close, dropping as markets move up their expectations for a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase, possibly as soon as April. That rate view supports the dollar at the expense of nonyielding metals.

“Gold prices are weaker in early U.S. trading, as a strengthening U.S. dollar index recently is bearish for the precious metals,” said Jim Wyckoff, analyst with Kitco.

The dollar is the main story. “A major terror attack in Pakistan Sunday isn’t having a significant impact on the marketplace,” Wyckoff added, referencing gold’s sometime-demand as a safe-haven cover amid geopolitical unrest.

via MarketWatch

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza