Rally at Wall Street and strong dollar take appeal away
Bullion metal prices ended lower on Tuesday, 02 April 2013. Comex gold futures prices ended the U.S. day session sharply lower and hit a two-week low on Tuesday. The key "outside markets" turned more bearish for the precious metals on a daily basis Tuesday - a firmer U.S. dollar index and weaker crude oil prices. Also bearish for the raw commodity sector in general is the bull run in the U.S. stock market that saw the Dow and S&P indexes score new highs on Tuesday.
Gold for June delivery ended lower by $25 or 1.6% at $1,575.9 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday.
May silver ended lower by 70 cents (2.5%) at $27.25 an ounce on Tuesday.
In overnight news, there was more dour economic data coming out of the European Union Tuesday. The number of Euro zone unemployed workers rose to a record level in February, which underscores the bloc's economic and financial problems. The overall Euro zone unemployment rate was 12.0% in February, which is unchanged from January.
Meanwhile, Euro zone manufacturing data for March showed weakness at an accelerating rate. The Euro zone manufacturing PMI was reported at 46.8 in March from 47.9 in February. There were no new developments on the Cyprus banking crisis front.
The U.S. dollar index, which weighs the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies fell by 0.15% on Tuesday.
Looking back at today's economic data at Wall Street, manufacturing orders rose 3.0% in February after declining an upwardly revised 1.0% (from -2.0%) in January. The consensus expected manufacturing orders to increase 2.6%.
Durable goods orders were revised down slightly from a 5.7% gain to 5.6%. A 75.0% increase in aircraft sales accounted for nearly the entire increase. Excluding transportation, durable goods orders fell 0.7%, which was slightly worse than the originally reported 0.5% decline.
At the MCX, gold prices for June delivery closed lower by Rs 422 (1.4%) at Rs 29,605 per ten grams. Prices rose to a high of Rs 30,047 per 10 grams and fell to a low of Rs 29,580 per 10 grams during the day's trading.
At the MCX, silver prices for May delivery closed lower by Rs 1,252 (2.4%) at Rs 51,473/Kg. Prices opened at Rs 52,847/kg and fell to a low of Rs 51,254/Kg during the day's trading.
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