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Gold fell 0.9 percent, to $1,289.40 an ounce, on Friday. Meanwhile, silver and copper also dropped, while Brent crude oil rose slightly.
On Friday, gold fell 0.9 percent, to $1,289.40 an ounce, according to Reuters. Investors have been focused on the US economy, which is performing well and pushing the dollar up. In such an environment, dollar-denominated assets like gold are more expensive for investors from other countries.
“Gold was completely dislocated from the dollar yesterday, meaning that euro-gold is the best performing commodity this year, helping dollar gold stay fairly stable around $1,300,” Saxo Bank Senior Manager Ole Hansen told the news outlet. “But that strength in the dollar is now proving too much.”
US gold futures fell $11.40, to $1,289.20 per ounce, while silver fell 0.8 percent, to $18.16 per ounce.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange dropped 2 percent to trade at $5,551 per tonne, Reuters states in another article. That is a slight rise from last week’s lows, which sent the copper price lower than it has been in more than five years. The metal is suffering from the dollar’s strength as well as from concerns about China.
“We think the fall is too much,” Nic Brown, head of commodities research at Natixis, told Reuters. “After the sharp move, that should be enough for now and copper should begin to climb slowly. But there probably isn’t any hurry (from consumers in China) to buy copper at the moment as no one is going to be accumulating metal ahead of Chinese New Year. So that’s a short-term negative for copper.”
Copper for March delivery on the COMEX in New York fell $0.055 to trade at $2.5235 per pound on Friday, according to FastMarkets.
Finally, Brent crude oil rose $0.48 on Friday to hit $49.30 per barrel, as per Reuters. This rise came in the aftermath of the death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and his half-brother Salman’s ascent to the monarchy of the world’s top exporter of oil.