Gold suffered for back-to-back losses Wednesday, dragged lower as trade tensions between the U.S. and China intensified, raising concerns over demand for industrial metals and sending copper prices to their lowest finish in almost a year.
August gold GCQ8, -0.03% lost $11, or 0.9%, to settle at $1,244.40 an ounce, so far tracking about a 0.3% week-to-date loss. The settlement was the lowest since July 2 for a most-active contract. The popular fund tracking gold, the SPDR Gold Shares GLD, -1.08% was 0.9% lower.
September silver SIU8, +0.15% fell 1.7% to $15.817 an ounce—the lowest most-active contract finish year to date, according to FactSet data. The iShares Silver Trust SLV, -1.72% was down 1.5%.
“The escalation in U.S.-China trade dispute put a sizable dent into all of the metal commodity prices overnight,” Jeff Wright, executive vice president at GoldMining Inc., told MarketWatch. “Gold is getting pulled down the broader sell off in copper and zinc.”
September copper HGU8, +0.95% plunged 3.4% to about $2.744 a pound, for the lowest finish since late July 2017, FactSet data show. September zinc fell 2.5% to a preliminary close at $2,557 per metric ton.
Gold has mostly been in a downtrend that has caused investors and technical analysts to maintain a bearish outlook for the asset that should ordinarily prosper during times of uncertainty, including around the trade disputes between the U.S. and its partners across the globe. However, the haven asset has shed some of its usual flight-to-safety luster so far.
The White House late Tuesday said it would assess 10% tariffs on a further $200 billion in Chinese goods. The move is seen as deepening the rift with Beijing and sending a message to other trading partners that the U.S. won’t back down in a trade fight. The news sent stocks and most “risk-on” markets lower.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Wednesday reiterated his call for allies to increase their military spending at the outset of this week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Brussels, while sharply criticizing Germany for supporting a major gas deal with Russia, developments that only intensify the geopolitical uncertainty facing markets that have been otherwise cheered by the prospect of upbeat earnings and evidence of economic growth.
Strength in the dollar also contributed to gold’s decline Wednesday. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.00% which reflects the greenback’s performance against a half-dozen currencies, was up 0.6% at 94.69, trading roughly 0.7% higher week to date.
“Gold’s negative correlation to the dollar remains a key challenge in the short term, but given the short-to-medium-term dollar-negative outlook highlighted [in the Saxo Bank quarterly outlook], we believe this headwind will fade over the coming quarter,” said Ole Hansen, Saxo’s head of commodity strategy.
“Having picked major fights on trade with friends and foes it is our belief that President Trump will sooner or later go on the attack against the stronger dollar as greenback strength complicates his vision of reducing the U.S. trade deficit,” Hansen said. “Despite the fading focus on inflation, which was a key driver at the beginning of the year, we believe that investors will continue to seek diversification and protection against potentially mispriced financial and geopolitical risks” with investments in gold. He pegs the end-of-year call for gold at $1,325 an ounce, with silver at $17 an ounce.
In economic reports, the wholesale cost of goods and services rose in June at the highest yearly rate in almost seven years, reflecting broad inflationary pressures in a fast-growing U.S. economy. The producer-price index climbed 0.3% June, the Labor Department said Wednesday.
Among other metals, October platinum PLV8, -0.11% fell by 1.3% to $835 an ounce and September palladium PAU8, -0.32% fell less than 0.1% to $937 an ounce.
