Gold was little changed on Tuesday, after falling in the past two sessions, as the dollar slipped and equities eased ahead of the US Federal Reserve meeting later in the day. Spot gold was up 0.1 percent $1,316.80 an ounce at 0655 GMT, hovering above the previous session's close of $1,315.15. US gold dipped 0.2 percent to $1,317 an ounce.
"At this moment people ... are more conservative on the likelihood of an interest rate hike as well as further stimulus. That would induce further correction in gold prices," said Mark To, head of research at Hong Kong's Wing Fung Financial Group. The US central bank is widely expected to stand pat on policy but investors were bracing for any possible signals from the Fed about a tightening later this year. Gold is highly sensitive to rising rates, which lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as bullion, while boosting the dollar in which the precious metal is priced. "We are quite nervous about the precious group here, as barring a sharper sell-off in US equities, we suspect that the pressure on gold will only intensify between now and Wednesday," said INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir in a note.
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