LONDON: Gold retreated on Monday, erasing the previous session’s slim gains as fading concern over potential escalation in the trade stand-off between China and the United States sparked a recovery in cyclical assets such as stocks at bullion’s expense.

Gold rose half a per cent on Friday as simmering worries over trade friction and softer than expected US payrolls data for March knocked equities and the dollar lower. However, it has struggled to maintain those gains.

Spot gold was down 0.3pc at $1,328.31 an ounce by 1145 GMT, while US gold futures for June delivery fell by $4.20 to $1,331.90.

Hedge funds and money managers cut their net long position in COMEX gold in the week to April 3 and boosted their net short position in silver to another record, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed on Friday.

Silver was flat at $16.35 an ounce, while platinum gained 0.3pc to $917.90. Palladium , which as a component in autocatalysts is the most industrial of the major precious metals, was up 2.8pc at $925.97 an ounce, in line with a bounce in other cyclical assets.

The metal had fallen for the past 11 sessions, hitting its lowest since mid-August at $895.47 on Friday. It is now down more than a fifth from the record high reached in January.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2018