WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold prices fell on Tuesday, extending previous session's sharp plunge, with investors choosing to pick up riskier assets such as equities, as fears of a wider Middle East conflict ebbed.
A weak dollar helped limit the yellow metal's downside. The dollar index dropped to 105.61, losing nearly 0.5%. Weaker than expected PMI data raised hopes the Fed will start reducing interest rates sooner than later.
Gold futures for April ended down by $4.50 or about 0.19% at $2,327.70 an ounce.
Silver futures for April settled at $27.331 an ounce, gaining $0.118 or about 0.43%. Copper futures dropped to $4.4320 per pound, losing $0.0440 or nearly 1%.
Fears of a wider Middle East conflict eased after Iran and Israel completed 'measured' counterattacks that were calibrated to avoid any casualties.
Traders await cues from a slew of U.S. economic data this week, including the release of first-quarter U.S. GDP data as well as the core personal-consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation.
In economic news today, a report released by the Commerce Department showed a substantial increase in new home sales in the U.S. in the month of March.
The Commerce Department said new home sales spiked by 8.8 percent to an annual rate of 693,000 in March after plunging by 5.1 percent to a revised rate of 637,000 in February.
Economists had expected new home sales to rise to an annual rate of 668,000 from the 662,000 originally reported for the previous month.
Building permits fell by 3.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.467 million in March 2024, revised from a preliminary estimate of 1.458 million. This follows a 2.3 percent increase in February.
The S&P Global US Composite PMI declined to 50.9 in April 2024 from 52.1 in the previous month, signaling only a slight expansion in the country's private sector, which was the softest since December, a preliminary estimate showed.
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