* Fed minutes awaited for clues on monetary policy
* Euro hits 1-month high versus dollar, stocks rally
* Goldman Sachs cuts gold price forecasts again
(Updates throughout, previous SINGAPORE)
By Jan Harvey
LONDON, April 10 (Reuters) – Gold prices eased towards
$1,580 an ounce on Wednesday as traders took to the sidelines
ahead of the release later in the day of minutes from the
Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting.
Softer investor confidence in the metal after a fresh
outflow from the world’s largest gold exchange-traded fund and a
further forecast cut from Goldman Sachs weighed on prices,
though a retreat in the dollar lent some support.
Spot gold was down 0.3 percent at $1,580.50 an ounce
at 0923 GMT, while U.S. gold futures for April delivery
were down $6.20 an ounce at $1,580.50.
The precious metal traded in its widest weekly range since
mid-February last week, sliding to a 10-month low at $1,539.74,
as funds favoured other assets such as equities, before
rebounding sharply on the back of weak U.S. jobs data.
“I think today will be a bit of a sideways day waiting for
the Federal Reserve minutes,” Marex Spectron’s head of precious
metals David Govett said.
“The market just got itself overly short. There was a lot of
speculative selling around in gold. Funds bailed out and got a
little bit short, and a lot of people were following the ETF
redemptions,” he said, adding much will now depend on the
outlook for U.S. monetary policy.
The Fed is due to release minutes of its March 19-20 meeting
at 1800 GMT. They will be closely watched for signs of any
change in attitude towards its current stimulus package, which
has driven gold higher by undermining confidence in the dollar
and keeping interest rates at rock bottom.
“Investors will be mainly scouring the minutes for any new
indications of when QE3 might be terminated, or of any
significant reduction in the bond purchasing volume,”
Commerzbank said in a note.
“Following last week’s poor U.S. labour market report,
however, a premature end to QE3 would appear to have become less
likely,” it added.
U.S. Treasuries held steady and U.S. stock futures rose
ahead of the release. Stock markets in Europe climbed as Chinese
trade data boosted miners, while the euro hit a one-month high
against the dollar.
GOLDMAN SACHS CUTS FORECAST
Goldman Sachs cut its 2013 gold price forecast for the
second time in six weeks, to $1,545 an ounce from $1,610. It is
targeting a gold price of $1,450 an ounce by year-end, it said.
“Despite resurgence in Euro area risk aversion and
disappointing U.S. economic data, gold prices are unchanged over
the past month, highlighting how conviction in holding gold is
quickly waning,” it said in a report.
“With our economists expecting few ramifications from Cyprus
and that the recent U.S. slowdown will not derail the faster
recovery they forecast in (the second half of 2013), we believe
a sharp rebound in gold prices is unlikely.”
The world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, New
York’s SPDR Gold Trust, reported a further outflow from
its gold holdings on Tuesday of just under five tonnes, bringing
its outflow for the year to more than 150 tonnes.
Gold-backed ETFs tracked by Reuters have
recorded outflows of 195 tonnes so far this year.
Among other precious metals, silver was down 0.6
percent at $27.75 an ounce. The grey metal rallied 2.5 percent
on Tuesday, its biggest one-day rise since mid-February.
The gold/silver ratio, which measures the number of silver
ounces needed to buy an ounce of gold, pulled back from last
week’s eight-month high as silver outperformed. An ounce of gold
now costs 56.8 ounces of silver, down from 57.9 on Friday.
Spot platinum was down 0.7 percent at $1,535.93 an
ounce, while spot palladium was down 1 percent at $715.97
an ounce.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
PRECIOUS-Gold eases towards $1580 before Fed minutes
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