Daily Gold Update

Source: CBS.Marketwatch

Washington— Metals futures erased earlier weakness to trade mostly higher Monday, adding to broad gains posted in the previous week.

Gold for June delivery inched up to $436.00 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 40 cents. The contract had run up $9.10, or 2.1% the week before.

"A decisive move through $450 is needed to encourage new money to pour into the market," said trader Kevin Kerr.

He noted, however, that gold's been "gaining some ground with investors who are tired of the roller coaster ride the dollar has provided lately."

James Moore of TheBullionDesk.com picked up on this point in his own market commentary.

The "major obstacle remains the euro's inability to break above 1.31 and could see gold detach itself from its recent correlation with the euro zone currency and push higher on its own," Moore said. "Gold's upside target remains $440 with support seen back at $428 to $430."

Rounding out the action, May copper nudged up 0.3 cents to $1.4910 a pound, June palladium added $1 to $202.50 an ounce and July platinum tacked on $2.70 to $878.70 an ounce.

May silver, bucked the trend, and was down 2.5 cents to $7.250 an ounce.

According to the latest inventories data compiled by Nymex, gold stood at 6.05 million troy ounces as of the close of business Friday, up 59,895 troy ounces from the previous day. Copper totaled 32,047 short tons, down 211 short tons, while silver inventories dropped 2,008 troy ounces to 103.52 million troy ounces.

Meanwhile, indexes tracking the mining sector eased at the open, and remained lower in midday trading.

The Philadelphia Gold/Silver Index stood at 88.11 points in midday trading, down 0.3%, while the CBOE Gold Index lost 0.4% to 76.59 and the Amex Gold Bugs Index slipped 0.5% to 187.84.