Gold futures settled higher on Tuesday, recovering well after exhibiting weakness earlier in the day.
Gold attracted safe-haven buying as equities tumbled with banking jitters returning to the fore after U.S. lender First Republic Bank said its deposits tumbled more than $100 billion last quarter and that it was exploring options such as restructuring its balance sheet.
A firm dollar limited gold’s upside. The dollar index climbed to 101.95, gaining about 0.6%.
Gold futures for June ended higher by $4.70 or about 0.2% at $2,004.50 an ounce, recovering from a low of $1,986.20 an ounce.
Silver futures for May ended down $0.429 at $24.882 an ounce, while Copper futures for May settled at $3.8480 per pound, down $0.1060 from the previous close.
Gold is around the $2,000 level and if the bloodbath on Wall Street gets uglier, investors will eventually pile back into the precious metal, says Edward Moya, Senior Market Analyst, The Americas OANDA.
On the U.S. economic front, the Conference Board released a report showing consumer confidence has deteriorated by much more than anticipated in the month of April.
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index slumped to 101.3 in April from a revised 104.0 in March. Economists had expected the index to edge down to 104.0 from the 104.2 originally reported for the previous month.
Data on new home sales, durable goods orders, first quarter GDP and personal income and spending are likely to attract attention in the coming days, heading into the Fed meeting next week.
The report on personal income and spending includes a reading on inflation said to be preferred by the Federal Reserve.
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