Gold prices ended flat in extremely quiet trade on Monday, as investors stayed on the sidelines after last week's short-covering rally sparked by hopes the Federal Reserve would postpone its withdrawal of monetary stimulus.Gold prices tracked nearly flat US equities and a steady dollar. Financial markets showed little reaction to a report showing weaker US home resale and price growth in September.
"The price action across markets is clearly starting to reflect the risk that the Fed is less likely to taper its asset purchases in the near term," Fitzpatrick said. US gold futures for December delivery settled up $1.20 an ounce at $1,315.80. Comex gold futures trading volume was less than 75,000 lots as of 4 pm EDT (2000 GMT), preliminary Reuters data showed, on track to be the weakest turnover since April 1 and one of the lowest this year. Spot gold underperformed futures, edged down 0.1 percent at $1,314.89 an ounce, with prices having moved in a narrow $10 range. Among other precious metals, silver outperformed, rising 1.5 percent to $22.21 an ounce. Platinum edged up 0.2 percent at $1,433.74 an ounce, while palladium was up 1.2 percent at $747 an ounce.