Gold futures declined on Tuesday as investors went for profit taking. The precious metal gained consistently for last two sessions and almost touched the benchmark of $1,700 per ounce which intrigued investors to realize profits. Gold futures surged 1.4 percent on Monday’s trading session in reaction to US Fed’s Chairman, Ben Bernanke who showed his concerns over US economy and indicated further easing measures.

Analysts from Commerzbank commented, “The prospect of further injections of liquidity by the US Federal Reserve is unequivocally positive for gold, for this makes the U.S. dollar less attractive, what is more, real interest rates remain negative. Several groups of investors immediately took advantage of Bernanke’s remarks to purchase gold.” SPDR Gold Trust which happens to be the world’s largest gold backed ETF had inflows of 6 metric tons of gold to 1,288.73 metric tons on Monday.

The gold futures contract for April delivery fell 0.1 percent or $0.70 to settle at $1,684.90 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The respective contract reached its intraday high of $1,693 per ounce.

On Tuesday, mixed sentiments at Wall Street and decrease in consumer confidence in March also exerted some pressure on the gold.

Among other metals, copper futures contract for May delivery fell 0.2 percent or $0.01 to settle at $3.88 per pound while silver futures for the same month slipped 0.4 percent or $0.13 to $32.62 per ounce.

Platinum futures for April delivery gained 0.7 percent or $10.80 to $1,657.50 per ounce while palladium futures contract for June delivery declined 0.9 percent or $5.75 to settle at $663 per ounce.