• Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell on Tuesday as traders weighed a potential rate hike.
• Gold has hit its lowest level in more than four weeks, as the US dollar strengthens and expectations for a US interest rate rise this month weigh, though moves were muted ahead of US payroll data this week.
• Spot gold was down 0.9 per cent at $US1,214.51 an ounce by 2.52 pm Tuesday EST (0652 Wednesday AEDT), having touched its lowest since February 3 at $US1,213.65 an ounce. The most active gold contract for April delivery fell 9.4 U.S. dollars, or 0.77 percent, to settle at 1,216.10 dollars per ounce.
• "The technical rejection at the 200-day moving average last week, combined with the rapid build up in spec longs that week, has left gold vulnerable," Saxo Bank's head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen said.
"There is no appetite for buying for gold ahead of a FOMC rate hike."
• "It's people getting out of it ahead of the Fed," said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist for RJO Futures in Chicago.
"Last week, Yellen pretty much laid it out; they're going to raise rates next week. The question is, how aggressive are they going to be and what's the language going to be."
• According to the CME Group's Fedwatch tool, the current implied probability of a hike from 0.50 to at least 0.75 is at 84 percent at the March meeting and 78 percent for the May meeting, along with a 7 percent chance of an increase to a 1.0 rate.
• A report released by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday showed the trade deficit increasing to negative 48.5 billion U.S. dollars during the month of January.
Analysts note that despite this sharp increase in the deficit, the figure is in line with expectations and analysts believe that it was unlikely to make a large impact on the movement of gold.
• Traders are looking to the rest of the week for the Automated Data Processing employment report on Wednesday, weekly jobless claims report on Thursday, and the big jobs report on Friday.
• Silver for April delivery dropped 23.7 cents, or 1.33 percent, to close at 17.536 dollars per ounce.
Reference: Xinhua, Business News
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