Daily Gold Update

Source: CBS.marketwatch.com

Washington— Metals futures ended as they began Wednesday, trading mostly lower, while gold miners' shares pared morning weakness.

On balance, the trading in gold futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange marked the second straight day in which the benchmark contract showed resiliency as the session went along.

Metals traders digested Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan's testimony and question-and-answer remarks before the Senate Banking Committee. See full story.

In the foreign-exchange market, the dollar turned mixed. See Currencies.

Earlier, the metals market shrugged off media reports of an explosion near a suspected nuclear facility in Iran.

Against this backdrop, gold for April delivery eased 40 cents to close at $426.90 an ounce, battling back from an intraday low of $424.30.

March silver also narrowed early losses to close at $7.225 an ounce, off 10.5 cents, while March copper ended off 1.05 cents to $1.448 a pound and March palladium surrendered $2.30 to close at $183.05 an ounce.

Only platinum ended the Nymex session higher, with the April contract gaining $3.10 to $856 an ounce.

James Moore of TheBullionDesk.com said the trading action in gold will continue to largely take its cues from moves in the dollar. If the greenback firms and makes further gains, gold could move back down to a range of $411 to $415, he said.

But market analyst Peter Grandich maintained a bullish stance on the precious metal. "Gold continues to offer great value as a hedge against the inevitable American debt crisis," Gold, sliver futures pare losses he said.

Metals inventories as tracked by Nymex showed gold and silver unchanged at 5.92 million troy ounces and 102 million troy ounces, respectively, as of Tuesday's close of business compared to the previous day. Copper inventories rose to 46,027 short tons from 45,376 short tons.