Gold heads south with focus on Fed minutes

On Tuesday, gold tumbled a bit in Asia in light trade with Tokyo markets unavailable and also the focus ahead on the Federal Reserve minutes later this week.

February delivery gold futures dived 0.04% being worth $1,308.80 a troy ounce in New York.

Market watchers are going to closely watch Wednesday’s minutes of the Federal Reserve’s December policy gathering for further clues on the future path of monetary policy.

The previous week on Friday, a weaker greenback underpinned gold, letting this commodity reach a three-month maximum back above the $1,300 level in the final trading day of 2017.

Gold has managed to add 14% for the year, which is the largest yearly percentage revenue since 2010.

Recent weakness in the evergreen buck has underpinned gold prices by simply making the dollar-denominated metal less expensive for holders of other currencies.

The evergreen buck dived to its lowest values for more than three months versus a basket of the other key currencies on Friday and reported its largest annual percentage dive since 2003.