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Gold and silver prices continued to soften on Tuesday as a strong dollar and higher government-bond yields continued to take their toll on precious metals.
Price action
-
Gold futures for December
GCZ22,
+0.30%
delivery fell $8.50, or 0.5%, to $1,645 per ounce on Comex. -
December silver futures
SIZ22,
+0.29%
fell 37 cents, or 1.9%, to settle at $19.189 an ounce. -
December palladium
PAZ22,
-2.96%
lost $78, or 4%, to $1,888 per ounce, while January platinum
PLF23,
-0.69%
fell $16, or 1.7%, to $911 per ounce. -
Copper futures
HGZ22,
-0.67%
for December were down 5 cents, or 1.6%, to $3.38 per pound.
What’s happening
The strong dollar and higher bond yields have sapped precious metals prices this year as investors have generally preferred the higher yields inspired by the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes.
“Gold and silver market bulls continue to be squelched by the strong U.S. dollar on the foreign exchange market and generally rising government bond market yields,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.
However, gold and silver remained lower on Tuesday, even as the dollar and Treasury yields pulled back. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
was off 0.2% at 111 while the yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was down 9.5 basis points at 4.132%.
