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Gold falls to 2-1/2-week low on stop-loss selling

Gold dropped to a 2-1/2-week low on Monday, extending losses from the previous session, as stop-loss selling more than offset support from China inflation data suggesting there was more room to ease monetary policy.

Gold staged its biggest daily loss in more than two months on Friday, after data showed US consumer sentiment rose to a five-year high, adding to concern that the Federal Reserve’s latest round of quantitative easing (QE3), aimed to improve job market and supporting growth, may be trimmed.

China’s annual consumer price inflation ticked down to 1.9 percent in September from August’s 2.0 percent, leaving plenty of room for further policy easing to shore up growth, which would help support gold’s role as a hedge.

But momentum in gold remained depressed after the data release, as the slide from Friday’s intra-day high above $1,770 triggered stop-selling that was still pushing prices lower, traders said.

“We traded through lots of stops this morning,” said a Singapore-based trader, “The China inflation story is outweighed by such selling.”

Spot gold fell to a 2-1/2-week low of $1,741.24 an ounce before paring some losses to $1,743.39 by 0323 GMT, down 0.6 percent from the previous close.

US gold lost 0.8 percent to $1,745.30.