Gold drops 0.8% to $1,232; WTI tumbles 5.4% as supply concerns resurface

New York (Feb 10)  Gold futures settled with a loss of more than $9 an ounce today, with strength in the U.S. dollar and a rise in equities dulling the metal’s appeal, but investors continue to keep an eye on ongoing turmoil in Greece.

Gold for April delivery shed 0.8 percent to settle at $1,232.20 an ounce on Comex.

In other metals trading, March silver dropped almost 1.2 percent to $16.87 an ounce. Platinum for April delivery fell $13.10 to end at $1,207.30 an ounce, while March palladium lost $13.95 to $765.70 an ounce.

High-grade copper for March delivery settled down $0.03 to $2.552 a pound.

In energy trading, crude-oil futures fell more than 5 percent today to their lowest settlement level in nearly a week as concerns about a persistent supply glut resurfaced ahead of weekly U.S. inventory updates.

West Texas Intermediate for delivery in March on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 5.4 percent to settle at $50.02 a barrel. That was the lowest settlement level since February 4.

Prices for the U.S. benchmark had tallied a climb of nearly 9 percent over the past three trading sessions, partly due to expectations that declines in active drilling rigs would help ease the oil supply surplus.

Brent crude for March delivery, the international benchmark, closed down 3.3 percent at $56.43 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The International Energy Agency, in its medium-term outlook released today, said it expects Brent to average $55 a barrel in 2015, edging up to $60 in 2016 and hitting $73 by 2020. The group also said that a price recovery seemed “inevitable,” with the oil glut starting to ease as soon as the second half of the year.

By comparison, the U.S. Energy Information Administration in a monthly report issued today forecast an average of $58 for Brent crude and $55 for West Texas Intermediate crude in 2015 — unchanged from the previous report.

Source: ProActiveInvestors