A day after hitting the highest level since 2012, gold prices slid Wednesday amid growing fears of a second wave of infections swamping the US and some other economies such as India and Brazil.
The World Health Organisation pointed to rising cases of coronavirus in the US, China, Latin America as reigniting worries of a possible second wave of the epidemic.
Those fears saw a rise in the value of the US dollar, which in turn knocked commodity prices lower. The Aussie dollar fell back under 69 US cents to trade at 68.80 US cents at 6 am.
The slide in share prices on Wall Street added to the downward pressures on commodities. Oil fell more than 6% as well.
August gold fell $US6.90, or 0.4%, to settle at $US1,775.10 an ounce, after touching a high of $US1,796.10. It settled Tuesday at the highest for a most-active contract since October. 4, 2012.
July silver meanwhile, retreated 39 cents, or 2.2%, at $US17.67, following a 0.9% rise in the previous session.
And Comex July copper fell 0.3% to $US2.6505 a pound.
The weakness in commodities didn’t extend to iron ore which rose 2.7% ahead of the three day Dragon Boat Festival in China and holidays.
The price of 62% FE fines delivered to northern China rose $US2.72 to $US103.34 a tonne.
Oil prices lost more than 5% on Wednesday as evidence of rising coronavirus cases in many countries raised questions about efforts to restart global economies and US government data revealed a third straight weekly climb in domestic crude stocks and a sharp and unexpected jump in daily production estimates.
In New York West Texas Intermediate crude for August fell $US2.36, or nearly 5.9%, to settle at $US38.01 a barrel on Nymex. In Europe, Brent oil for August delivery fell $US2.32, or 5.4%, to end at $US40.31 a barrel.
The Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that US crude oil stocks rose for a third week in a row, by 1.4 million barrels for the week ended June 19.
The EIA also showed crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma., storage hub fell by about 1 million barrels for the week, but total domestic oil production climbed by 500,000 barrels a day to 11 million barrels a day – that was a big surprise.
