Gold rebounded on Monday from 5-1/2 month lows as the dollar shed some of the hefty gains made the previous week on bets that US President-elect Donald Trump's plans for fiscal stimulus would prove inflation. Those assumptions have driven Treasury yields higher, denting interest in non-yielding bullion while boosting the US currency. But as the dollar took a breather on Monday, after climbing for 10 straight sessions against a basket of major currencies, gold clawed back some lost ground.
Lower prices are also tempting some consumers of physical gold back to the market, dealers said. Spot gold was up 0.3 percent at $1,212 an ounce by 2:59 pm EST (1959 GMT), while US gold futures for December delivery settled up 0.09 percent at $1,209.80.
"I think there's probably a re-evaluation of the pro-risk mentality that we've seen over the last couple of weeks. Very little has actually changed," Mitsubishi analyst Jonathan Butler said." "The bounce that we're seeing (in gold) is probably on the back of the market moving on, to a degree." Among other precious metals, silver was down 0.2 percent at $16.55 an ounce, helping to lift the gold/silver ratio to 73, the highest since late-June. Platinum was 1.6 percent higher at $93.10 and palladium was up 0.3 percent at $726.78.