By Paul Ploumis 24 Jun 2015 Last updated at 07:37:33 GMT

(Kitco News) - Gold prices ended the U.S. day session moderately lower Tuesday. Strong daily gains in the U.S. dollar index emboldened the sellers in gold and silver today. August Comex gold was last down $7.10 at $1,177.00 an ounce. July Comex silver was last down $0.402 at $15.74 an ounce.

Gold and silver markets traders also got some bearish “Fed speak” Tuesday. Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank will raise interest rates in September and again in December, if his economic growth projections prove accurate. He then said there is a 50-50 chance his economic forecast will pan out. San Francisco Fed President John Williams also recently predicted two Fed rate increases yet this year. The past several years of easy U.S. monetary policy have mostly worked in favor of the precious metals market bulls.

Amid a summertime trading atmosphere and no other major world geopolitical developments, Greece by default remains on the front burner of the market place. Greece and EU officials are still meeting early this week to try to finalize a debt-restructuring deal. The two negotiating parties are closer to agreement on a deal, but more tough hurdles need to be overcome, reports said. Now, a meeting is scheduled between Greece and EU officials on Wednesday. Then a summit of EU leaders is scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

There are also some reports that said some EU officials—especially Germany--do not believe a deal with Greece is imminent. Greece has a big debt payment due on June 30, and presently does not have the funds for it. Meantime, the European Central Bank continues to provide daily emergency cash to Greek banks, which are seeing heavier customer withdrawals of cash. The market place views the present Greece debt talks as improving, as evidenced by the increase in investor /trader risk appetite early this week—which is also a negative for safe-haven gold.

A batch of U.S. economic data released Tuesday had little impact on the gold and silver markets.

The London P.M. gold fix is $1,178.00 versus the previous A.M. fix of $1,183.35.

Courtesy: Kitco News