Gold Falls for Fifth Day as Dollar Rallies to 13-Month High

By Feiwen Rong

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Gold fell for a fifth day as the dollar rallied to the highest in more than 13 months against six major currencies including the euro, reducing demand for bullion as an alternative asset.

The Dollar Index rose to 81.32 today, the highest since Aug. 22, 2007. The euro also dropped to a 13-month low after leaders of Europe's four-biggest economies on Oct. 4 didn't agree on a U.S.-style bailout plan to counter the worst financial crisis since World War II.

``Investors exited the gold safe haven trade as euro continues to weaken against the dollar,'' Adrian Koh, analyst at Phillip Futures Pte., said in a report today.

Gold for immediate delivery fell 0.5 percent to $831.28 an ounce at 2:23 p.m. in Singapore. Silver for immediate delivery fell 0.9 percent to $11.035 an ounce.

The dollar rose for the sixth day to $1.3612 against the euro at 1:46 p.m. in Singapore, after touching $1.3595, the highest since Sept. 5, 2007.

``The euro-dollar is attempting to extend another leg lower'' after the Oct. 4 meeting failed to ``to yield anything substantial,'' Emmanuel Ng, economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., said today in a report.

Gold ETF

The bullion holdings at the SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest exchange-traded fund backed by gold, fell more than 2 percent to 739.95 metric tons on Oct. 3, after reaching a record high of 755.26 tons on Sept. 9.

Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators decreased their net-long position in New York gold futures in the week ended Sept. 30, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.

Speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 117,786 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Washington- based commission said in its Commitments of Traders report. Net- long positions fell by 3,230 contracts, or 3 percent, from a week earlier.

December-delivery gold was little changed at $834.80 an ounce in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold for December delivery in Shanghai fell 5 percent, or the maximum allowed in one day, to 184.35 yuan a gram ($837 an ounce) after a week-long holiday in China.

Gold for August delivery declined 3.1 percent to 2,749 yen a gram ($821 an ounce) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 2:56 p.m. local time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Feiwen Rong in Singapore at frong2@bloomberg.net