Daily Gold Update

Source: MarketWatch

WASHINGTON By Mike Maynar— On Wednesday, prices for precious metals ended at their highest levels in a month. But Thursday saw the previous session's advances in silver and palladium evaporate, with smaller pullbacks for copper and gold.

The dollar offered little direction for metals, trading narrowly mixed against the other major currencies.

Metals traders also found mixed readings in the Federal Reserve's beige book survey of current economic indications, issued after the close of Wednesday's Nymex regular session.

Copper remained in the spotlight on the New York Mercantile Exchange, continuing what's been a series of volatile trading sessions this month.

The weakness in copper appeared to play off fresh economic data out of China indicating that demand for industrial metals may not appear as strong as might have been anticipated from the nation's report on first-quarter gross domestic product released earlier in the week.

Of particular note, Chinese imports of refined copper dropped 15.4% in the March quarter compared to a year earlier, according to a research note from Man Financial.

However, Man Financial pointed out that "price controls and tariffs are skewing the statistics."

Still, copper for May delivery fell 2.6 cents, or 1.7%, to close at $1.4835 a pound, canceling out much of Wednesday's advance.

Silver also turned lower, as an early effort to consolidate gains of more than 29 cents generated over Tuesday and Wednesday failed. May silver closed at $7.217 an ounce, down 12 cents.

Also on Nymex, June gold lost $2.30 to end $434.40 an ounce, while June palladium skidded $6.35 to close $199.90 an ounce and July platinum closed at $873.90 an ounce, down $2.70.

According to the latest inventories data compiled by Nymex, gold increased to nearly 6.05 million troy ounces as of the close of business Wednesday, up 112,461 troy ounces from the previous day.

Silver inventories rose by 534,490 troy ounces to 102.68 million troy ounces, while copper stood at 32,740 short tons, down 508 short tons.

In equities, indexes tracking mining stocks remained to the downside.