Gold futures drop for third straight session

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange closed lower on Wednesday,for the third session in a row, but gained for the month. The most active gold contract for June delivery fell 0.4 U.S. dollar, or 0.03 percent, to settle at 1,295.9 dollars per ounce. Tracking the most-active contracts, gold climbed about 1 percent for April, with much of the gain attributable to safe-haven demand for the precious metal due to tensions surrounding Ukraine. Traders spent the regular trading session assessing a weaker- than-expected report on U.S. first-quarter GDP along with the strongest private-sector jobs growth in five months, while waiting for the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy decision, which came after the COMEX closed. Market analysts say that the U.S. central bank trimmed, as expected, the size of its bond-buying strategy by 10 billion dollars to 45 billion dollars, pressuring the gold trading. In electronic trading after the Fed's announcement, June gold was down at 1,291.6 dollars an ounce. U.S. economic growth slowed to a miserly 0.1 percent annual pace in the first quarter from 2.6 percent at the end of 2013, statistics show on Wednesday. But private-sector-employment gains beat economists' expectations in April, as employers added 220,000 jobs, reports say. Silver for July delivery fell 36.4 cents, or 1.86 percent, to close at 19.174 dollars per ounce.