Gold closed lower Monday, mostly on a stronger dollar and profit taking, even as investors weighed the high price of the precious metal.
Gold for April delivery, the most actively traded contract, dropped $1.50 or 0.1 percent to $1,774.90 an ounce Monday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The precious metal traded at an intraday high of $1,781.00 an ounce and a low of $1,762.60 an ounce.
Gold prices had advanced to a 3-month high last week as investors sought the precious metal as a safe haven amid eurozone concerns and some weak economic data from China.
The euro pared impressive gains made last week and was trading at $1.3397 on Monday, down from $1.3462 late Friday. The euro had scaled a high of $1.3478 intraday.
The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. unit against six major currencies, rose to 78.533 on Monday from 78.341 late on Friday.
In the U.S., National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index rose 2.0 percent to 97.0 in January from a downwardly revised 95.1 in December. Economists had been expecting to index to increase by about 1.5 percent.
In economic news, eurozone's broad monetary aggregate M3 grew 2.5 percent year-on-year in January, according to data published by the European Central Bank. The increase exceeded December's 1.5 percent rise and the 1.8 percent rise forecast by economists.
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