Gold ended May with its fourth straight monthly decline, the most in 12 years, but finished Thursday's trading session with a small daily increase as a deepening euro zone crisis prompted some investors to turn to gold amid flight from riskier assets. Spot gold edged up 0.2 percent at $1,564.30 an ounce by 3:30 pm EDT (1930 GMT). Bullion's 6 percent drop for the month marked its biggest decline since a late December sell-off put bullion teetering on the brink of a bear market.
For May, bullion outperformed crude oil, which tumbled about 15 percent and matched the S&P 500 index's decline of around 6 percent. The precious metal is about even since the start of the year. On charts, gold broke below a three-year upward trend. Analysts said, however, the metal should hold technical support at around $1,530 an ounce after it fell close to that level three times in two weeks and held each time.
US COMEX gold futures for August delivery settled up 80 cents at $1,562.60 with trading volume largely in line with its 30-day norm after stronger-than-average turnover in the previous two sessions. Among other precious metals, silver eased 0.3 percent to $27.81 an ounce, while platinum rose 1.2 percent to $1,412.25 an ounce and palladium also gained 1.3 percent to $610.47 an ounce.
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