Gold futures settled lower on Wednesday, extending losses from the previous session.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Gold futures for June ended down by $3.40 or about 0.2% at $1,955.60 an ounce.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Bostic added that the neutral rate could be between 2% and 2.5% and the funds rate could be as low as 1.75%.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n