Gold slipped back slightly in a narrow range in Europe on Monday, moving with currencies as markets awaited this week's US Federal Reserve rate setting meeting, dealers said.
Spot gold stood at $404.50/405.20 an ounce by 1457 GMT, compared with $405.50/406.25 late on Friday in New York.
The dollar ground higher amid widespread expectations that the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) will raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 1.75 percent after its meeting on Tuesday, following rises in June and August.
The euro eased to $1.2140 against the dollar.
Higher interest rates would tend to boost dollar demand and hurt that for gold, but bullion market participants were fairly sanguine as a possible rise for this month had already been factored into prices.
Analysts said that with a US rate rise already priced in, attention would be turning to the Fed's statement after Tuesday's meeting.
"Sporadic trade is likely to remain the theme this week until the Fed meeting is out the way," James Moore of The BullionDesk.com said in a daily report.
Barclays Capital analyst Kamal Naqvi said the market's expectations for the FOMC meeting seemed set and so any devation from that would be a big surprise.
"It seems unlikely that we'll see something different to what people are anticipating," he said.
Analysts said bullion was positioned for another step higher so long as support at $395.00 remained intact, with further dollar weakness seen sparking the gains.
Silver eased back in line with gold and was last at $6.20/6.23 from $6.22/6.25 quoted late in New York on Friday.
Platinum dipped to $833.00/838.00 from $837.00/842.00, while palladium slipped to $203.00/207.00 from $205.50/211.50.
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