US COMEX gold futures for February settled down $3 cents an ounce to $1,667.70, with trading volume about 20 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Open interest, a gauge of market activity, surprisingly climbed 4,000 lots to 435,742 contracts on Tuesday even though bullion prices dropped 2 percent, suggesting newly created bearish bets are weighing on gold prices, traders said. Silver dropped 1.5 percent to $31.16 an ounce. Among other precious metals, platinum inched down 0.2 percent to $1,587.40 an ounce and palladium was up 0.8 percent at $692 per ounce.
US COMEX gold futures for February settled down $3 cents an ounce to $1,667.70, with trading volume about 20 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Open interest, a gauge of market activity, surprisingly climbed 4,000 lots to 435,742 contracts on Tuesday even though bullion prices dropped 2 percent, suggesting newly created bearish bets are weighing on gold prices, traders said. Silver dropped 1.5 percent to $31.16 an ounce. Among other precious metals, platinum inched down 0.2 percent to $1,587.40 an ounce and palladium was up 0.8 percent at $692 per ounce.