Gold hovered near its highest level in more than three months on Tuesday, but investors may hold off chasing the metal too strongly ahead of the release of key US data.
Spot gold hit a high of $641.70 an ounce before slipping to $639.75/640.50 an ounce, down from $640.60/641.60 late in New York. The metal had rallied to its highest since August 11 at $641.75 an ounce on Monday on a weaker dollar, firm crude oil prices as well as purchases after the US Thanksgiving Day holiday. Profit taking may persist, but dealers said gold would find support around $635. Investors await comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the economic outlook due and US third-quarter gross domestic product data due on Wednesday.
"If you've made some money at this stage, I guess you would want to take some profit. I think it's going to be a tight range and gold is pretty well tied to the US dollar," said a dealer in Sydney. "But the technical picture looks better," he said. The euro was little changed at $1.3135, near a 20-month high of $1.3180 hit on electronic trading platform EBS on Monday.
The dollar was little changed at 116.10 yen. Benchmark gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, currently October 2007, fell 3 yen per gram to 2,417 yen ($20.81), having risen to a 2-week high the previous day on fund buying.
Platinum dropped to its lowest level in more than three weeks at $1,130 an ounce as fund selling continued after talk of an exchange traded platinum fund subsided. It has lost around nearly 19 percent in value since touching a record high of $1,395 last week. The metal was last quoted at $1,140/1,150 late in New York. Silver edged up to $13.47/13.52 an ounce from $13.46/13.53 late in New York. Palladium rose to $324/329 an ounce from $323/328.