LONDON: Gold fell on Tuesday as sharper appetite for risk benefited cyclical assets at bullion’s expense, with the dollar’s recovery from three-week lows versus the euro adding to pressure on the metal.

Gold rallied to a 2-1/2 month high last week as heightened tensions over Syria and US sanctions on Russia sparked a drop in equities and ratcheted up interest in nominally defensive assets.

Those gains, however, have proved hard to maintain.

Spot gold was down 0.4 per cent at $1,341.23 an ounce at 1350 GMT, while US gold futures were down 0.5pc at $1,343.80. “All this noise we’ve been witnessing as of late, whether it is trade disputes or Syria, has not really moved gold on a sustainable basis,” Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke said.

Among other precious metals, silver was up 0.6pc at $16.70 an ounce, while platinum was 0.4pc higher at $930.50.

Palladium was up 0.1pc at $1,002.80 an ounce, recovering from an earlier low of $980.75. The metal hit its strongest since March 1 on Monday at $1,012.10 an ounce.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2018