Climb in U.S. equities lure investors away from the precious metals

Gold futures settle at its lowest close in two weeks

Bullion prices ended lower on Wednesday, 21 May 2014. Gold futures settled at their lowest close in early two weeks, as a climb in U.S. equities lured investors away from the precious metal. Prices fell even further in the electronic trading session immediately after the Federal Open Market Committee released the minutes from its April meeting, but prices have rebounded to trade above the Comex closing level.

Gold for June delivery fell $6.50, or 0.5%, to settle at $1,288.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

July silver dipped 6 cents, or 0.3%, to end $19.34 an ounce for the regular Comex trading session.

The economic highlight of the day and arguably of the week was the Wednesday afternoon release of the latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes. The FOMC members did discuss a rate hike process, and the market place deemed those words just a bit hawkish. Comments from a couple of Fed officials on Tuesday were also seen to be in the hawkish camp on U.S. monetary policy. The U.S. stock market did see buying interest surface after the FOMC minutesalso pressuring the gold market somewhat.

Moody's Investor Services on Wednesday cut its outlook on China's property sector from stable to negative. The firm said it expects that sector of the Chinese economy to struggle in the next 12 months.

At Wall Street, economic data was limited to the weekly MBA Mortgage Index, which rose 0.9% to follow last week's increase of 3.6%. Despite the headline increase, purchase applications declined 3.0%, while the overall index was driven higher by a 4.0% gain in refinancing applications.

The Russia-Ukraine territorial crisis has not gone away, but there has been no major, fresh news on that front for a couple weeks. The Ukraine holds a presidential election on Sunday, which could produce new tension in the region.

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