Gold Futures Settle Lower For 2nd Straight Day

Gold futures settled lower on Wednesday, extending losses from the previous session.

The dollar’s slide help limit gold’s losses. The dollar lost ground with traders reacting to less hawkish comments from Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Boastic.

The dollar index, which had settled at 100.96 on Tuesday, edged lower in the Asian session and kept sliding as the day progressed. The index touched a low of 100.22 before recovering marginally ato 100.33, still down by over 0.6% from the previous close.

Gold futures for June ended down by $3.40 or about 0.2% at $1,955.60 an ounce.

Silver futures for May ended lower by $0.120 at $25.271 an ounce, while Copper futures for May settled at $4.6520 per pound, down $0.0660 from the previous close.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said on Tuesday that he favours two half-point rate hikes at upcoming meetings and move rate to 2.25-2.50% by the end of the year.

Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said that a 75-basis point rate hike is not on the cards and expressed concerns about the impact of faster policy tightening on the U.S. economic recovery.

Bostic added that the neutral rate could be between 2% and 2.5% and the funds rate could be as low as 1.75%.

In economic news today, a report from the National Association of Realtors showed existing home sales slumped by 2.7% to an annual rate of 5.77 million in March after plunging by 8.6% to a downwardly revised rate of 5.93 million in February.

Economists had expected existing home sales to tumble by 3.7% to a rate of 5.80 million from the 6.02 million originally reported for the previous month.

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