Investing.com - More profit-taking on gold’s run this month left the yellow metal with a smaller 2% gain as it closed October trading on Wednesday, with analysts saying the dollar needed to retreat for gold bugs to see a meaningful performance in November.
Gold for December delivery fell $10.30 to settle the month at $1,215.30 per ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Since this week began, the contract has lost $20.80, or 1.7%, as investors cashed in gains of the past four weeks that came as gold benefited from a rout in equities and a shaky dollar.
Factoring in the three-day decline, gold posted a 2% gain for October, its highest since January. Just last week, it was headed for a monthly gain of nearly 4%, which would have been its biggest since July 2017.
“I don‘t expect the rug to be pulled out from under the gold price,” said Walter Pehowich, executive vice president at Dillon Gage Metals in Addison, Texas. “At this juncture though, we need a lower dollar and lower equity prices for gold to recover.”
The dollar index, measured against a basket of six currencies, hit 16-month highs on Wednesday, further weighing on gold as fears of more trade war angst between the U.S. and China prompted some investors to seek the currency as alternative safe-haven to the yellow metal. Early bets for a widely-expected Federal Reserve rate hike in December, which would be the fourth for the U.S. this year, also buffeted the dollar at gold’s expense.
Stocks on Wall Street, meanwhile, rallied on a resurgence in tech stocks after some better-than-expected earnings.
In other precious metals trading on COMEX, silver futures fell 0.9% to $14.28 a troy ounce. It fell 2.4% for October.
Palladium rose 1.2% to $1,067.80 an ounce, while sister metal platinum traded up 0.1% to $840.00. Palladium gained 0.4% for the month, while platinum rose 2.6%.
Among base metals, COMEX copper slid 0.3% to $2.655 a pound. It fell nearly 5% on the month.