By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures on Tuesday took their biggest plunge in six months as optimism about the global economy dimmed the metal’s safe-haven appeal and investors migrated mostly to cash.
Gold for February delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\g11 (GCG11 1,383, +4.30, +0.31%) fell $44.10, or 3.1%, to settle at $1,378.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
“People are shooting first and asking questions later,” said Adam Klopfenstein, senior market strategist with Lind-Waldock in Chicago.
Silver lost more than 5%, while copper ended 2% lower, giving up the previous session’s record high.
The flow of money turned mostly to cash and the dollar, and to a lesser degree bonds, particularly corporate bonds, with the asset class’s large offerings Tuesday.
For gold, which advanced 30% in 2010, it was the first “meaningful” selloff in several weeks, said Charles Nedoss, a senior market strategist with Olympus Futures in Chicago.
“We’re seeing [investors] shaking the money tree,” he said. Large-fund liquidation, based on technicals rather than fundamentals, was the story, he added. “The longer-term [upward] trend for gold is still intact. This is just a blip.”
Asset rebalancing may also have played a role in Tuesday’s selloff as funds “fine tune” their weightings during the first half of January, Kitco Metals analyst Jon Nadler wrote in a note to clients.
Any additional selloffs for gold are likely to be tempered by fund buying later in the week due to the lower prices, Lind-Waldock’s Klopfenstein said.
Copper futures also came under pressure, after touching a fresh peak earlier in the day.
It earlier had risen to a record level in London, where metals markets were closed Monday, and hit its best level since 2007 in China.
Asian inflation may hurt Aussie
As Asian central banks start to tackle inflation with higher interest rates, demand for Australian exports could fall, weakening the Australian dollar.The metal traded as high as $4.47 earlier.
Copper closed at a record high Monday, settling at $4.458 a pound. Monday’s showing followed four record closing days in the prior week as investors grew upbeat about the prospects for global growth in 2011.
Recent high prices for copper and other base metals have been driven “by strong economic data and firm Asian equity markets,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note to clients.
In the U.S., stocks opened higher, extending Monday’s rally, then weakened after data showed a 0.7% rise in factory orders in November.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average most recently was edging higher, while the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 also remained in the red. Read more about stocks.
Other metals were caught in the gold and copper downdraft, with silver for March delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f1:si\h11 (SIH11 2,973, +21.70, +0.74%) declining $1.62, or 5.2%, to $29.51 an ounce.
That was silver’s lowest finish since Dec. 27, when it closed at $29.26 an ounce.
Palladium for March delivery /quotes/comstock/21n!f:pa\h11 (PAH11 776.05, +7.00, +0.91%) fell $31.35, or 3.9%, to $769.05 an ounce. April platinum /quotes/comstock/21n!f2:pl\j11 (PLJ11 1,743, -4.40, -0.25%) declined $39, or 2.2%, to $1,747.40 an ounce.
The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 79.63, +0.18, +0.23%) gained Tuesday, trading at 79.39, up 0.3%.
A rising dollar is generally negative for commodities as it makes them more expensive for holders of other currencies. For gold, it also chips away at the metal’s role as a currency of last resort.
Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.
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