国际英语新闻:Gold falls amid uncertainty in financial sector

CHICAGO, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange returned once again to negative territory on Friday, as negative development in the U.S. banking system, a stronger U.S. dollar, and uncertainty in Europe troubled traders.

The most active gold contract for June delivery lost 11.5 dollars, or 0.72 percent, to settle at 1,584 dollars per ounce. Gold futures ended down 3.7 percent for the week and have declined in four of the last five trading sessions.

In contrast, the U.S. dollar has risen in nine of the last ten sessions. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) dollar index, which measures the greenback against six other major currencies, traded at 80.26 Friday, up from 80.159 in late North American trading Thursday.

A stronger dollar puts further pressure on gold, as it makes commodities in general more expensive for holders of other currencies, said market analysts.

The rise in the dollar was mostly due to a negative report from the U.S. Department of Labor showing that producer prices fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in April, the biggest decline since October.

Combined with traders' continued worries towards the eurozone and particularly Greece and Spain, the release of the producer price index data sent the dollar up with its safe haven appeal.

While before gold had actually taken some momentum from economic worries such as those in Europe, recently the precious metal seems to have lost some of its traditional safe haven appeal as investors have increasingly preferred the U.S. dollar.

Although the dollar gave back some of its earlier gains following positive results from the University of Michigan-Thomson Reuters consumer sentiment index, which was the best results from the index since January 2008, gold was unable to completely recover and still posted a loss for the day.

Gold also found little support in the U.S. equities markets, which were seeing some pressure after J.P. Morgan Chase announced a 2 billion dollar trading loss. Shares of the U.S. banking giant were down almost ten percent on the New York Stock Exchange, and the staggering loss troubled many investors who had seen the U.S. banking system much improved since the 2008 financial crisis.

Crude oil futures also took a sharp hit Friday, closing down 1. 25 percent on the day and 2.4 percent for the week.

Silver for July delivery fell 28.8 cents, or 0.99 percent, to settle at 28.890 dollars per ounce.