Gold inched up to trade around $940 on Wednesday, maintaining the previous session's firm sentiment with the precious metal Gold stood at $938.50 per ounce at 0530 GMT Wednesday, up 0.1 percent from New York's notional close of $937.30. It rose as high as $942 earlier on Wednesday. At the peak of the economic crisis earlier this year, both gold and US gold futures for December delivery were at $940.50 per ounce, up 0.1 percent.
Demand for physical gold from exchange-traded funds remained soft, however, with holdings of the largest unchanged for a week. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust, said its holdings stood at 1,065.49 tonnes as of August 18, unchanged since August 11 Gold imports by India, a major consumer, slumped by two-thirds in July from a year earlier, a decline that industry officials blamed on high prices.