COMEX gold futures fell on Wednesday as rising US Treasury yields hit the attractiveness of unyielding gold and outweighed support from a weaker dollar.
New York time 13:30 on April 14 (01:30 domestic time on April 15,), COMEX) the most actively traded June gold contract settled down $11.3, or 0.6%, at $1736.30 an ounce.
May silver futures rose 9.8 cents to settle at $25.524 an ounce.
July platinum futures rose $20.30 to settle at $1177.4 an ounce.
June palladium futures fell $17.50 to settle at $2679.40 an ounce.
Among other COMEX metals, the most actively traded May copper contract rose 9.70 cents to settle at $4.1285 a pound.
David Meger, head of metals trading at High Ridge futures, said the rise in bond yields seemed to "put some very light pressure on the [gold] market".
However, the fall in gold prices looks more technical, with $1750 being both short-term technical and psychological resistance, Meger added.
Gold also rose on Tuesday after data showed that (CPI), the US consumer price index, rose the most in more than eight-and-a-half years in March, marking the start of a brief period of inflation expected by most economists.
Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, said gold "continues to build a foundation below $1750 after falling to $1675 an ounce".
"as long as the underlying effects of the collapse in commodity prices last spring continue to distort the annual inflation data, we are likely to fall into a horizontal trend."
Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell said Wednesday that the Federal Reserve will reduce its bond purchases before raising interest rates. "when we make further substantial progress towards our goal after December, we will reach a time to scale back our asset purchases," he said. "that was probably long before we considered raising interest rates. We have not yet voted on this order, but this is the train of thought of the new policy guidelines. "
The US economic recovery accelerated to a modest pace between late February and early April, the Fed said in its latest beige book.
A weaker dollar supports the price of gold. The dollar fell to a three-week low on Wednesday as Treasury yields stayed below recent highs, reducing the relative attractiveness of the dollar.
The dollar has risen so far this year, helped by a rise in US Treasury yields in anticipation of faster economic growth and higher inflation. However, such trading has been suspended this month and yields have stabilised below the one-year high hit last month.
Naeem Aslam, an analyst at AvaTrade, said gold prices continued to maintain upward momentum as concerns about Fed easing were exaggerated, pointing out that a longer-term interest rate cut would be good for gold prices.
