By Pham-Duy Nguyen Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Gold prices fell, erasing earlier gains, as a rebound in the dollar eroded the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative asset. The greenback rose as much as 0.4 percent today against a basket of six major currencies after dropping 1.1 percent last week. Before today, gold rose 19 percent this year, touching a record $1,072 an ounce on Oct. 14, while the dollar sank 7 percent. “The dollar just stopped going down, and gold needs to see the dollar to continue to go down,” said Frank Lesh, an analyst at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. “Everyone is long gold, and you just have to wonder how much more gold they’re going to buy at this point.” Gold futures for December delivery fell 30 cents to $1,051.20 an ounce at 10:05 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, the metal rose as much as 0.6 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at pnguyen@bloomberg.net.

Source