WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold prices drifted down sharply on Tuesday as investors chose riskier assets such as equities amid hopes the Chinese central bank will come up with more stimulus measures to boost growth.
The dollar's continued strength thanks to fairly encouraging economic data, contributed as well to the yellow metal's decline.
The dollar index rose to 98.01 before retreating slightly to 97.97, up 0.16% from previous close.
Gold futures for April ended down $26.90, or about 1.7%, at $1,555.50 an ounce, the lowest settlement in more than two weeks.
On Monday, gold futures for April ended down $5.50, or 0.4%, at $1,582.40 an ounce.
Silver futures for March ended down $0.109 at $17.561 an ounce, while Copper futures for March ended up $0.0350 at $2.5420 per pound.
China's central bank unexpectedly lowered the interest rates on reverse repurchase agreements by 10 basis points on Monday as part of efforts to relieve pressure on the economy from a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak. Markets now expect the bank to announce more stimulus measures to boost growth.
In U.S. economic news today, data released by the Commerce Department showed new orders for U.S. manufactured goods spiked by more than anticipated in the month of December.
The data said factory orders surged up by 1.8% in December after tumbling by a revised 1.2% in November. Economists had expected factory orders to jump by 1.2% compared to the 0.7% decrease originally reported for the previous month.
Durable goods orders soared by 2.4% in December after plunging by 3.1% a month earlier.
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