Daily Gold Update

Source: Marketwatch

San Francisco— Gold futures settled lower Friday, hit by a stronger dollar even as ongoing conflict in Libya and the Middle East and Japan�s nuclear disaster fed some safe-haven buying. Gold for April delivery fell $8.70 to $1,426.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded as high as $1,438.10 an ounce overnight. The metal lost steam in the last stretch of floor trading after wavering between small gains and losses for most of the session. On the week, however, gold gained 0.7%. Friday�s trading was tinted by a technical reversal on Thursday, when the metal touched an intraday record high but ended lower. The reversal left gold vulnerable on Friday.

But gold remains well supported and the technical reversal, while significant, is not expected to damage the long-term case for the metal, said Scott Meyers, a senior trading analyst with Pioneer Futures, a division of MF Global, in New York. �I don�t think the technicals are going to win out,� he said. �Pick a region, there�s something going on.� Investors concerns rest on strife in the Middle East and North Africa, and the aftermath of Japan�s natural and nuclear disaster. �There�s potential for news out of Japan to get a lot worse,� said Matt Zeman, trader at Kingsview Financial in Chicago. See full story.