Gold futures fell on Wednesday as investors had mixed opinions before the meeting of European Central Bank on Thursday. Investors are also keenly waiting of US jobs data due on Friday. Gold futures contract for December delivery fell 0.1 percent or $2 to settle at $1,694 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The respective contract reached its intra-day high of $1,698.40. The precious metal has gained almost 5.5 percent in last month.

Gold has mainly appreciated on expectations that the European Central Bank will go for huge sovereign bond purchases to tackle the region’s debt problems however theses expectations are also overshadowed by mixed doubts.

Investors and analysts are now looking at the ECB that how the central bank is going to respond to Europe’s ongoing debt crisis. Analysts James Steel and Howard Wen from HSBC commented, “Gold price behavior has been strongly correlated to monetary policy expectations this year. It is possible that the gold advance could halt temporarily ahead of a European Central Bank meeting and monthly U.S. employment data later this week.”

Among other base metals, silver futures contract for December delivery fell 0.3 percent or $0.08 to settle at $32.33 per ounce while copper futures for the same month gained 1.7 percent or $0.06 to settle at $3.53 per pound.

Platinum futures contract for October surged 0.5 percent or $8.10 to settle at $1,575.60 per ounce while palladium future for December delivery jumped 0.9 percent or $5.50 to settle at $646.95 per ounce.