A stronger US dollar saw the gold price ease and took the shine off gold equities.
The gold price has lost US$10 an ounce on the spot market since this point yesterday, trading just over $1,303/oz earlier.
Base metal futures were mixed in Asian trade this afternoon, while iron ore is around a two-year high - above US$86 per tonne as Vale's production was further curtailed with a key operating licence revoked in the wake of the fatal Feijão dam failure last month.
London and US market indices closed lower yesterday but Toronto gained.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index metals and mining sector closed down 0.21%, weighed down by the gold equities' drop of 0.54%.
However the diversified sector was up 0.73%, thanks mainly to Ivanhoe Mines' (TSX: IVN) gain of 13.1% as Robert Friedland unveiled plans at Indaba to build the world's second-largest copper mine.
Among the junior set, Adventus Zinc (TSXV: ADZN) jumped almost 12% or C10c yesterday, having last month made key appointments and announced a planned name change to reflect its focus now on copper.
In Australian trade, diversified miners on the S&P/ASX 200 were up around 0.8% while the gold set was down a similar amount at the time of writing.
South32 (ASX: S32) was one of the bigger movers, up more than 4.5% in afternoon trade.
