Other safe-haven assets also fell, with the Japanese yen nursing broad losses, having suffered a big reversal overnight as traders in London and New York took a brighter view on the global economy.
"The selling (in gold) will likely continue going into Wednesday's session, especially if we see another round of strong buying set in over global equity markets," said INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir.
"All this goes to show us that gold still remains very much in the orbit of U.S. equities and we suspect that this will remain the case for some time to come," he said.
Investor flows into the two largest gold exchange-traded funds topped $5 billion for February. State Street’s SPDR Gold Shares ETF attracted $4.186 billion for the month and iShares Gold Trust raked in $887 million. The last time flows were higher the S&P 500 had fallen more than 18 percent for the year and the U.S. Federal Reserve was just three months into its first quantitative-easing program.
Reference: Reuters, ETF.com, Bloomberg