Mixed finish for bullions

Gold drops but silver shines

It was mixed finish for bullions at Comex on Tuesday, 29 September 2015. Gold futures finished lower on Tuesday as a global rout in commodities weighed on the precious metal. Silver gained.

December gold gave up $4.90, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,126.80 an ounce on Comex, a day after the metal recorded its largest single-day point and percentage drop since early September. Prices also fell 0.7% on Friday.

Meanwhile, December silver gained 3.5 cents, or 0.2%, to $14.573 an ounce after a nearly 3.8% drop on Monday.

Expectations the Federal Reserve may soon raise interest rates have helped provide a boost to the dollar which, in turn, weighs on dollar-denominated assets like gold, making them more expensive to investors buying commodities in other currencies. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index wavered against currency rivals on Tuesday, but it's gained about 0.4% quarter to date.

U.S. economic data Tuesday showed a rise in the consumer confidence index in September, at 103.0 versus 101.3 in August. The September reading was the highest since January. The upbeat figure did not help out the gold bulls as it fell into the camp of the U.S. monetary policy hawks, who want to see U.S. interest rates raised sooner rather than later.

Most Asian stock markets were lower on Tuesday, following Wall Street's sharp drop on Monday. China's Shanghai stock index was down 2% on the day, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 3%. Japan's Nikkei stock index fell to an eight-month low Tuesday. Australia's stock market dropped to a two-year low. U.S. stock indexes were stable in afternoon dealings on Tuesday.

Traders are looking ahead to Friday's U.S. jobs report for September from the Labor Department. The key non-farm employment figure is expected to be up 200,000 in September, versus a miss to the downside of up 173,000 in the August report.

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