June 1, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1427

NEW YORK, May 31: Gold in New York stumbled on a burst of speculative selling on Wednesday as cautious investors tracked moves in the dollar and oil, though prices stuck to their recent wide trading range, dealers said.

The dollar rebounded a day after a sharp fall, putting pressure on gold, an alternative to the greenback. Crude prices, meanwhile, sank nearly $2, diminishing gold’s appeal as an inflation hedge.

Gold’s erratic today, trading up and down, and it’s just now touching a new low on very limited volume, said Frank Aburto, a broker at Rosenthal-Collins Group. It’s month-end liquidation, and you also have delivery notices today in June gold.

By 10:46 a.m. EDT, benchmark August delivery gold on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s COMEX division was down $9.50 at $651 an ounce, trading from $665.80 to $649.50.

Dealers said futures appeared to be range-bound between support at $643 and $640 and resistance at $675 to $680.

Nearby June gold was bid at $650, down $3.90, on its first notice day for June metal delivery. Dealers said some traders tried to scramble out of gold positions after the first notices were issued.

US futures spiked to a 26-year high on May 12, at $732 an ounce on economic and geopolitical uncertainty, before hefty profit-taking dragged it to as low as $636 last week.

Ian Cockerill, chief executive of South Africa’s Gold Fields, said in an interview that gold may hit $1,000 per ounce over the next few years, partly fueled by hefty investment demand from oil producers with excess cash.

Spot gold sank to $646.00/ 646.80 an ounce, off from Tuesday’s New York close at $656.80/ 7.60. Wednesday’s afternoon bullion fix in London was at $653.

In silver, COMEX July futures dropped 42 cents to $12.65 an ounce, in a range of $13.1250 to $12.56. Silver reached a 25-year high of $15.20 on May 11.

Spot silver fell to $12.67/12.77 an ounce, from $13.07/13.17 previously. Wednesday’s London fix hit $13.13.

Over at NYMEX, July platinum fell $16.40 at $1,275 an ounce. Spot platinum sank to $1,277/1,283 an ounce.—Reuters