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Asian gold lower in afternoon on fund selling

HONG KONG: Asian spot gold fell on Tuesday as speculators liquidated long positions after Y2K-related computer problems failed to disrupt financial markets.

Gold bullion was quoted at US$284.00/284.75 per ounce late on Tuesday compared to New York's previous close at US$287.80/288.80 on Thursday and Hong Kong's Monday close of US$288.50/289.50.

Some major bullion markets were trading for the first time on Tuesday since the New Year holiday and the crossover to 2000, which has so far seen no major complications related to the millennium computer bug.

The London and New York markets have been closed since Thursday and reopen on Tuesday.

Hedge funds were liquidating long positions which they established against possible Y2K-related computer problems, traders said.

"Nothing happened with Y2K, so they chose today to liquidate long positions," a dealer said.

Stop-loss and options-related selling contributed to the decline.

The losses were curbed by producer buybacks after gold priced in Australian dollars declined and after good physical buying from Asia and the Middle East, dealers said.

In Tokyo where markets reopened after the holidays for a half-day session, palladium futures ended sharply lower on profit-taking as Y2K-related problems failed to appear.

Platinum futures ended mostly higher as the resignation of Russian President Boris Yeltsin deepened uncertainty about the country's restart of platinum exports, traders said.

Gold futures ended lower on the yen's firmness against the dollar.

Spot silver was quoted at US$5.32/35 an ounce after closing in New York at US$5.40/42 on Thursday.

Spot prices for platinum group metals were slightly lower compared with late on Monday in Asia.

Platinum was quoted at US$443.00/448.00 an ounce on Tuesday and palladium also was quoted at US$443.00/448.00.

Local tael gold was quoted HK$45 down at HK$2,636.

The carry over charge at the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society was -3, down from its previous fix at -1.-Reuters