Gold Climbs Off Worst Levels But Closes Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - Gold prices moved to the downside during trading on Monday, extending the pullback seen during last Friday's session.

Gold for January climbed well off its worst levels but still ended the day down $6.60 or 0.3 percent at $2,638.40 an ounce.

The decrease by the price of gold came amid an increase by treasury yields, with the yield on the benchmark ten-year note poised to end the day at its highest closing level in eight months.

Meanwhile, traders largely shrugged off a decrease by the value of the U.S. dollar, which came after a Washington Post report suggested President-elect Donald Trump may scale back his tariff plans.

While Trump previously called for "universal" tariffs of as high as 10 or 20 percent on everything imported into the U.S., the Washington Post said his aides are now exploring plans that would apply tariffs to every country but only cover "critical imports."

The U.S. dollar index has regained ground since Trump denied the report as "fake news" but remains down by 0.7 percent.

On the U.S. economic front, a report released by the Commerce Department showed new orders for U.S. manufactured goods decreased by slightly more than expected in the month of November.

The Commerce Department said factory orders fell by 0.4 percent in November after climbing by an upwardly revised 0.5 percent in October.

Economists had expected factory orders to dip by 0.3 percent compared to the 0.2 percent uptick originally reported for the previous month.