New York 28/03/2012 - Gold futures struggled Wednesday with sluggish physical demand and overall weakness in commodity and equity markets weighing on prices and sentiment.

Gold for April delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $27, or 1.6 percent, to close at $1,657.90 an ounce. Trade ranged from $1,654.00 to $1,684.50.

“Downside risk is still present with the end of the first quarter approaching. Gold could undergo further selling pressure in the short-term,” said MKS Finance SA, adding that technical support stands at $1,625, which was the last bounce on the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement of the January to February rise.

In market fundamentals, the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation contends that about 85 percent of India's 300,000 jewellers remain on strike to protest over a government plan to double gold coin and bar import duties to four percent.

The merchants said that they will keep their shops shuttered until the proposal is abandoned, which looks unlikely as Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee reportedly said that there are no plans to roll back the tax measures.

“If gold jewellers were really to make good their threat, this would have negative impacts on the Indian gold imports, not only in the current quarter, but also in coming months and could for the time being block any significant increase in the price of gold,” Commerzbank AG said in a note.

Gold prices also dropped with the euro as data from the European Central Bank showed that liquidity tightened in February. ECB loans to the private sector grew by just 0.7 percent year-on-year in February compared to the 1.1 percent rate in January, Jim Steel, an analyst with HSBC, noted.

Elsewhere, US durable goods orders rose 2.2 percent month-on-month in February, below forecasts of three percent; however, core durable goods orders did come in as expected at 1.6 percent.

This slightly worse-than-expected report helped push the dollar to 1.3274 against the euro, while the Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 ended down 0.54 percent and 0.49 percent, respectively.

As for other commodities, light sweet crude (WTI) oil futures on the Nymex were last down $2 to $105.33 per barrel and Comex copper futures for May delivery ended off 8.75 cents, or 2.3 percent, at $3.7925 per pound.

“Gold prices were on the defensive along with oil on news of preliminary conversations to a coordinated release of oil supplies by western economies. According to the Financial Times, the US, the UK, Japan and France have begun a dialogue on potentially releasing oil from strategic reserves in order to lower oil prices,” Steel said.