Gold hovered near its weakest level since early 2010 on Tuesday, reflecting investor hesitation to bid up bullion amid growing expectations of a near-term hike in US interest rates. The Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting later in the day where policymakers are likely to signal that a rate hike later in the year is certain as the US economy strengthens.
A further tumble in Chinese equities after their deepest rout since 2007 on Monday has barely affected trading in gold, typically seen as a safe haven. "If anything it's a little bit surprising that we haven't had the safe-haven bid in gold even though you've had these big risk-off moves in the Chinese equity market," said Victor Thianpiriya, commodity strategist at ANZ Bank in Singapore. Spot gold was up 0.3 percent at $1,096.96 an ounce by 0615 GMT.