Gold futures settled lower on Tuesday as investors chose to pick up riskier assets such as equities amid easing geopolitical concerns following news Russia is pulling back some troops from the Ukranian border.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said units from Russia’s southern and western military districts, which border Ukraine, have already begun returning to their bases after completing combat training.
The news has helped ease concerns about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which members of the Biden administration recently warned could be imminent.
The dollar’s weakness helped limit gold’s decline. The dollar index dropped to 95.96, giving up nearly 0.5% from the previous close.
Gold futures for April ended lower by $13.20 or about 0.7% at $1,8,56.20 an ounce, a day after climbing to a three month high on Monday amid heightened concerns about the possibility of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine.
Silver futures for March ended down by $0.506 at $23.342 an ounce, while Copper futures for March settled at $4.5315 per pound, gaining $0.0240.
In economic news, data from the Labor Department showed U.S. producer prices jumped by much more than expected in the month of January. The producer price index for the final demand surged up by 1% in January after rising by an upwardly revised 0.4% in December, the data said.
Economists had expected producer prices to increase by 0.5% compared to the 0.2% uptick originally reported for the previous month.
Another data from the Labor Department said the annual rate of producer price growth slowed to 9.7% in January from 9.8% in December. Economists had expected the yearly growth to slow to 9.1%.
The annual rate of growth in core producer prices also decelerated to 6.9% in January from 7% in December.
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