Gold Loses Its Luster as Dollar Reigns Supreme
NEW YORK -- What a difference a day makes, not to mention a meager quarter of a percentage point.</br></br>That is what bullish gold traders discovered yesterday as they watched the recent gains accrued by the yellow metal wash away in a tide of disappointment. That followed the Federal Open Market Committee's opting to trim interest rates by a conservative quarter of a percentage point instead of the half-point some expected.</br></br>August gold futures on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange plunged more than $4 before bouncing to end the session at $270 a troy ounce, $2.80 lower than Wednesday.</br></br>To be fair, it wasn't the Fed decision alone that pulled the legs out from under gold prices. Even ahead of the announcement Wednesday afternoon, gold had begun to weaken on a selloff in the oil sector.</br></br>Market watchers are increasingly "looking at energies as leaders for other inflation-geared commodities," according to George Gero, first vice president at Prudential Securities.