Gold ticks higher in London

Gold edged higher on Thursday on bargain hunting and a weaker dollar but remained mired in a familiar range, struggling to break out either way. Its fate was seen tied to movements in oil prices and the dollar in the near term, traders said.
"Oil continues to be under pressure and technically looks weak. We think the trend is still probably downwards in gold," a precious metals dealer in London said.
Spot gold touched a high of $576.50 an ounce before paring gains. It was quoted at $573.40/574.15 by 1422 GMT, against $572.60/573.60 in New York late on Wednesday.
Barclays Capital's precious metals analyst said in a daily research note that broad macro-economic factors continued to pose downside risks in the short term.
"The dollar has firmed up in October so far while oil prices have continued to trend lower which, in turn, have heavily weighed on sentiment in the gold market," Costanza Jacazio said.
"Nonetheless, we expect both the dollar and oil prices to reverse direction as we move towards the end of the year which should prompt renewed investor interest in gold." Oil prices fell to their lowest this year as traders waited for Opec to thrash out details of an output cut and the market expected another rise in already hefty US crude inventories.
Weaker oil lowers gold's appeal as an inflation hedge. But other analysts said gold was unlikely to drop sharply as price dips would attract more investors and physical buyers from major consuming markets such as India and the Middle East.
"We don't see it running over $700 very quickly again, but we don't see big falls coming through," said Jon Bergtheil, global metals strategist at J.P. Morgan.
The market took little notice of US August trade figures, which showed a second consecutive record US trade deficit in August, as improved sentiment in the US economy stemmed the decline of the dollar.
Gold prices generally move in the opposite direction to the dollar. In other metals, platinum inched up to $1,069/1,074 an ounce from $1,067/1,072, while palladium fell to $302/307 from $304/309 in New York. Silver edged up to $11.23/11.30 an ounce from $11.18/11.25.