Gold Climbs, Palladium Dips

Ivaylo
17 Apr, 2007
New York City

Gold futures ended higher on Monday, boosted by a softer dollar. There was a lot of physical buying underneath the market. Overall the sentiment remained very bullish and the uptrend was certainly intact. Platinum and palladium, though, were supported by news that exchange-traded funds will be launched for the white metals next month in Switzerland, despite the fact that palladium closed lower for the day on profit-taking.

[R]5:30AM Gold finishes higher Monday on dollar weakness, palladium declines.[/R]
June gold rose $4.60 to finish at $694.50 a troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Silver declined with May silver shedding a penny to close at $14.08 an ounce after earlier trading $13.82 an ounce. July platinum gained $3.10 to $1,289.50 an ounce, while June palladium lost $2.05 to $379 an ounce. In trading of base metals, May copper advanced 0.75 cent to settle at $3.5395 per pound.

In Nymex energy trading, crude oil futures finished lower after reports that Nigerian production was on course to rise in the coming weeks. The May crude oil contract lost 2 cents to settle at $63.61 a barrel. May heating oil dipped 4.14 cents to settle at $1.8593 a gallon. Natural gas for May delivery ended 27.1 cents lower at $7.530 a million British thermal units Monday, slipping some 3.5% during floor trading.

Arabica coffee futures declined sharply. May coffee ended 3.35 cents lower at $1.0845 a pound, while July coffee was off 3.45 cents at $1.1120 a pound. May raw sugar closed 0.20 cent lower at 9.70 cents a pound, while July sugar finished 0.28 cent weaker at 9.59 cents a pound.