Gold rose on Monday on weaker US equity markets and geopolitical tensions over increasing violence in Iraq, while platinum eased as South African miners' union declared an official end to a five-month strike. The yellow metal extended last week's 3 percent gain as Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.
Spot gold was up 0.1 percent at $1,315.60 an ounce by 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT). The metal hovered near its two-month high of $1,321.90 after posting its biggest weekly gain in three months last week. US COMEX gold futures for August delivery settled up $1.80 at $1,318.40 an ounce, with trading volume about 30 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Platinum dropped 50 cents to $1,453.25 an ounce, while palladium rose 0.4 percent to $820.25 an ounce. Silver inched down 1 cent at $20.86 an ounce after jumping 6.3 percent last week, its biggest gain since February.
Comments
Comments are closed.