Gold may retreat as rebounding equities

Gold may fall in New York as higher equities and a strengthening dollar curbed demand for the metal as an alternative asset.The dollar was little changed after this week climbing to the highest level since February against six major currencies. European stocks rose for a second day amid speculation China may still support the region even after Premier Wen Jiabao said indebted countries must not rely on bailouts. Gold, which reached a record $1,923.70 an ounce on Sept. 6, yesterday fell below $1,800 as some investors sold the metal to cover losses in equity markets.“Most of the move in gold has been to do with risk aversion and the recent move has been to do with the dollar,” Carole Ferguson, an analyst at Fairfax IS in London, said today by phone. Still, “we don’t know how sustained this rebound will be” in equities, and lower stocks in the long run will support gold, she said.Gold for December delivery fell $7.80, or 0.4 percent, to $1,822.30 an ounce by 8:11 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Immediate-delivery gold was 0.8 percent lower at $1,818.93 in London.Bullion is in the 11th year of a bull market, the longest winning streak since at least 1920 in London, as investors seek to diversify away from equities and some currencies. The metal is up 28 percent this year, outperforming global stocks, commodities and Treasuries.Moody’s Investors Service lowered credit ratings for Societe Generale SA and Credit Agricole SA, two of France’s three largest banks by assets. French lenders top the list of Greek creditors with $56.7 billion in exposure to private and public debt, according to a June report by the Bank for International Settlements.Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou holds a conference call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy today to discuss developments in his nation and the euro area. Merkel has said she won’t let Greece fall into “uncontrolled insolvency” because the risk of contagion for the other euro-zone countries “is very big.”“There’s going to be a lot of volatility,” Richard O’Brien, chief executive officer of Newmont Mining Corp., the largest U.S. gold producer, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “That’s the key point, up but volatile. I don’t think there’s a lot of downside. Gold’s going to trade more and more like a currency instead of like a commodity.”Silver for December delivery in New York fell 0.7 percent to $40.89 an ounce. Platinum for October delivery was up 0.2 percent at $1,817.20 an ounce. Palladium for December delivery declined 0.9 percent to $722.05 an ounce.Platinum is trading close to parity with gold. An ounce of platinum bought 1.18 ounces of gold on average this year in London, down from 1.32 ounces in 2010. The ratio last month fell to the lowest level in almost two decades.