Precious Metals Slide, XAU Tumbles 2.4%
Gold and silver futures remained in negative territory in afternoon trading on Thursday amid broad-based weakness in commodities and a rally in the U.S. dollar.
COMEX gold futures settled lower by $8.30, or 0.5%, at $1,744.70 per ounce, a relatively modest decline after falling to an intra-day low of $1,739.00 this morning. COMEX silver futures fared worse, dropping $0.36, or 1.1%, to $32.87 per ounce.
Among other precious metals, platinum futures lost $26,80, or 1.6%, to $1,643.70 per ounce and palladium retreated by $6.20, or 1.0%, to $647.20 per ounce.
The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which rose only slightly earlier in the day, extended its gains this afternoon to trade higher by 0.5% at 79.395.
As for gold and silver stocks, the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index (XAU) tumbled 2.4% to 186.54. In doing so, the sector was underperforming the metals for the first time this week and was on pace to snap a three-day winning streak.
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The XAU’s sell-off was driven by a combination of the decline in precious metals and widespread weakness in the broader equity markets – which was due in large part to the mistakenly early release of Google’s (GOOG) particularly disappointing third quarter earnings results.
Notable XAU components in the red this afternoon included AngloGold Ashanti (AU), which sunk 6.7% to $32.61 per share despite the absence of any company-specific news on Thursday. Other mining stocks moving lower were Gold Fields (GFI) and IAMGOLD (IAG) – which fell by 5.7% to $11.79 and by 4.4% to $15.50 per share, respectively.
2012-10-18 16:00:16
Source: http://www.goldalert.com/2012/10/precious-metals-slide-xau-tumbles-2-4/
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