Gold prices drop further; silver slips below Rs40,000

New Delhi-India (Sept 19)  Gold prices fell for the second straight day at the bullion market on Tuesday by losing Rs40 per 10 grams owing to slackened demand from local jewellers even as the metal rose overseas. Silver too extended its fall on sustained speculative selling to revisit the Rs39,000-level on weak industrial demand.

Standard gold (99.5 purity) dropped by Rs40 to end at Rs29,690 per 10 grams from Monday’s closing level of Rs29,730. Pure gold (99.9 purity) also moved down by a similar margin to Rs29,840 per 10 grams as compared to Rs29,880 earlier. Silver (.999 fineness) dipped by Rs635 to conclude at Rs39,455 per kg as against Rs40,090 previously.

Globally, gold prices edged up from the previous day’s two-week low as the dollar eased ahead of this week’s US Federal Reserve meeting, which is expected to provide more clues on the pace of US monetary tightening.

Spot gold was up 0.1% at $1,308.36 an ounce at early trade, off the previous day’s low of $1,304.10. Among other precious metals, silver was down 0.2% at $17.18 an ounce.

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