Gold down as trades gloss over Fed talk

                    
                      Gold futures are trading lower in Asia Thursday after snapping a four-day winning streak during Wednesday’s U.S. as traders appear to glossing over comments from the Federal Reserve that it will leave interest rates low for the foreseeable future. 

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for April delivery fell 0.22% to USD1,604 per troy ounce in Asian trading Thursday after settling down 0.37% at USD1,605.40 a troy ounce in U.S. trading on Wednesday. 

Gold futures were likely to test support USD1,590.80 a troy ounce, Monday's low, and resistance at USD1,614.60, Tuesday's high. 

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at near zero and made no changes to its monthly USD85 billion bond-buying program known as quantitative easing. 

Traders also took profits as fears ebbed regarding the situation in Cyprus. The Cypriot parliament on Tuesday rejected calls to tax banking accounts holding at least EUR20,000 to help come up with EUR5.8 billion needed to qualify the country for a EUR10 billion multilateral bailout package. 

Cyprus is in talks with Russia, which provides Cyprus with some of its largest bank deposits, regarding the extension of a EUR2.5 billion loan package, but those talks produced little in the way of results Wednesday. Still, there is speculation that Cyprus could turn to Russia for a bailout in an effort to dodge another vote on a deposit tax, a move that would assuredly rankle policymakers from the European union in the process. 

Cyprus cannot borrow more money from Moscow without raising its debt ceiling. Despite the fact that Russian banks reportedly hold USD40 billion in Cypriot loans, at least one Russian bank called its exposure to Cyprus "insignificant." 

Elsewhere, Comex silver for May delivery fell 0.20% to USD28.758 per ounce while copper for May delivery dropped 0.04% to USD3.441 per ounce.
Courtesy : INVESTING.COM