• Gold slipped on Monday, snapping three days of gains as the U.S. dollar index strengthened after last week's soft U.S. jobs data did little to dampen optimism about the world's largest economy.
• Spot gold was down 0.04 percent at $1,314.08 an ounce by 1:36 p.m. EDT (1736 GMT), earlier hitting a one-week high at $1,318.85. U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled down $0.60, or 0.05 percent, at $1,314.10 per ounce.
• "The dollar in the immediate term is overbought and gold is oversold today. (Gold) needs to recapture $1,322 to increase," said John Caruso, senior commodity strategist at RJO Futures.
• The market was thinned by a national holiday in Britain, which closed trading desks in London.
• "The dollar's strength, driven by a less hawkish European Central Bank and a disparity in bond yields (between the United States and Europe), has kept gold lower today," said TD Securities head of commodity strategy Bart Melek.
• Investors were therefore tempering bets on higher gold prices, said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch, with speculators cutting their net long positions on Comex gold contracts to the lowest since July 2017 with a "massive reduction" in the last few trading weeks.
"Most speculative investors have thrown in the towel already," he said.
• Speculators cut their net long positions in COMEX gold by 62,378 contracts to 51,985 contracts in the week to May 1, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed on Friday.
• Meanwhile, silver lost 0.1 percent to $16.47 an ounce. Palladium was up 0.1 percent at $967.97 an ounce, earlier hitting its highest level since April 27 at$980. Platinum gained 0.7 percent to $911.90 an ounce, having earlier hit its highest price since April 25 at $918.70.
Reference: Reuters
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