KARACHI: The yellow metal price in global and domestic markets failed to sustain strength on technical ground besides dull demand from metal speculators while trading activity remained future-speculation based as major stakeholders remained busy manipulating Future price during the trading session. The Futures gold price would be firm as the metal was still in leading hands by August 2018. Gold closed at $1,327 an ounce with $16 downward variation in value as compared to previous trading session and domestic bullion price witnessed same trend. Gold in tola term down by Rs 736 a tola to close at Rs 57,506 per tola while in grammage value, gold remained down by Rs 632 per ten grams to Rs 49,354 per ten grams. The gold price remained in the hands of leading manipulators in India, Pakistan and other major gold buying countries, as they remained busy influencing current prices and gold Futures. The potential buyers in India and Pakistan remained busy in hedging. The gold hedgers made some cautious deals. The general buyers remained on sidelines anticipating further easing in price in coming days on dollar-rupee parity. Buyers made deals according to their immediate needs. Local trading in gold remained dull on back of insignificant buying. Published in Daily Times, April 6th 2018.