Investing.com - Gold prices fell in Asia Tuesday on profit taking as investors looked look ahead to views on U.S. interest rates this week.
Investors await an appearance by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday for further indications on the pace of tightening over the next several months.
On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold for April delivery dipped 0.40% to $1,193.10 a troy ounce.
Silver for March delivery fell 0.36% to $15.370 a troy ounce and copper for March delivery rose 0.12% to $2.095 a pound.
Overnight, gold surged more than 3% at session-highs on Monday, rising to its highest level since June, as investors piled into the safe-haven asset amid a continuing rout in major banking stocks throughout the world.
A host of stocks among prominent European financial firms, including Deutsche Bank (DE:DE:DBKGn) AG NA O.N. (N:DB), Commerzbank (DE:DE:CBKG), HSBC Holdings (L:HSBA) PLC (N:HSBC) and BNP Paribas SA (PA:PA:BNPP), plummeted anywhere between 3 and 7% on Monday, amid mounting concerns on the impact of negative interest rates and persistently low oil prices.
Several days after soaring more than 8% last Wednesday on hopes of a dramatic reduction in OPEC and non-OPEC production, crude slipped back below $30 a barrel, applying further pressure on banks and the high-yield market.
Last month, JPMorgan Chase & Co (N:N:JPM), Citigroup Inc (N:N:C) and Wells Fargo & Company (N:WFC) all warned that they could incur credit losses in the range of hundreds of millions in oil and gas loans later this year if oil prices continued to weaken.
Gold is viewed as a safe-haven asset for investors in periods of heightened financial instability.
While markets in China remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, the celebrations started off inauspiciously after the People's Bank of China reported on Monday that its foreign currency reserves declined by $99.5 billion in January, falling to the lowest level since 2012.
Last month, the total amount of Chinese foreign reserves fell for a third consecutive month, as the PBOC continued to unload large amounts of the dollar in an effort to prop up the yuan and prevent