Gold rose on Tuesday as fears of a slowdown in Chinese economic activity and worries about an escalating crisis in Ukraine boosted demand for bullion. Tensions over Ukraine continued to build and with diplomacy at a standstill, European Union governments said they were considering sanctions against Russia if it failed to respond positively to an initiative to calm the crisis.
"If the Russian situation can be contained and US data continues to hold in, gold will turn into an excellent short opportunity once again, with specs likely to flip back from long to short quite quickly," said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities. Spot gold was up 0.7 percent at $1,346.70 an ounce by 2:35 pm EDT (1835 GMT), having earlier reached $1,352.50, near a four-month high. US COMEX gold futures for April delivery settled up $5.20 at $1,346.70 an ounce, with volume about 10 percent above its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Among other precious metals, platinum was down 1.1 percent at $1,457.80 an ounce, while palladium fell 0.9 percent to $765.90 an ounce. Silver gained 0.1 percent to $20.82 an ounce.
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