*Gold seen as attractive asset amid good liquidity conditions
*SPDR Gold holdings <XAUEXT-NYS-TT> unchanged on Thurs
By Risa Maeda
TOKYO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Gold steadied on Friday as light
buying emerged on dips toward $1,000 per ounce, after it declined
$12 in the previous session from an 18-month high.
Despite some technical indicators suggesting the market may
be overbought, sentiment remained firm, analysts say, and many
market participants still expect gold to break through its record
high of $1,030.80 an ounce.
Spot gold <XAU=> was at $1,012.25 per ounce as of 0330 GMT,
slightly up from New York's notional close of $1,011.45. It is on
track to post a 0.7 percent rise for the week.
"It's still well above the $1,000 mark... I'm sure there will
be ups-and-downs day by day, but I expect upward pressure on gold
to stay for a while," said Tatsufumi Okoshi, a senior economist
at Nomura Securities Co.
"There are opportunities for investors to take advantage of
increasing liquidity provided by major central banks. But the
situation is the same as before --- there're few attractive
assets other than gold," he said.
Trade in Asia was relatively slow ahead of a long weekend in
Japan. Tokyo's financial markets are closed from Monday to
Wednesday next week for national holidays.
On Thursday, gold hit a high of $1,023.85 per ounce, a hefty
$74.2 above the level at the end of August. It topped $1,020 for
the second straight day, when a measure of global equities
reached an 11-month high. []
But data showed there was no money inflow into the world's
largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund on Thursday, suggesting
that the day's rally was mainly driven by short-term investors
building up long gold futures positions.
The SPDR Gold Trust <GLD> said its holdings stood at
1,086.479 tonnes on Thursday, unchanged from a day earlier and up
about 22 tonnes from the end of August. []
U.S. gold futures for December delivery <GCZ9> stood at
$1,013.90 an ounce. On Thursday the contract fell $6.70 to settle
at $1,013.50 on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile
Exchange after hitting a high of $1,025.80.
Gold has benefitted from a lack of investor confidence in
prospects for the global economy and will likely do so until
company managers boost earnings forecasts, Nomura's Okoshi said.
In addition, increasing debt issues by the U.S. Treasury and
diversification fears undermining the U.S. currency mean gold
often attracts the most of safe-haven demand, traders said.
The U.S. currency has retreated broadly since March as
investors shifted into riskier assets due to increasing signs
that the global economy was on the mend. []
Precious metals prices at 0339 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover
Spot Gold 1012.05 0.60 +0.06 14.99
Spot Silver 17.16 -0.02 -0.12 51.59
Spot Platinum 1330.00 -5.50 -0.41 42.70
Spot Palladium 299.00 -2.50 -0.83 62.06
TOCOM Gold 2979.00 -24.00 -0.80 15.78 34058
TOCOM Platinum 3899.00 -47.00 -1.19 47.02 7659
TOCOM Silver 502.90 -11.40 -2.22 57.50 442
TOCOM Palladium 888.00 13.00 +1.49 61.45 210
Euro/Dollar 1.4715
Dollar/Yen 91.21
TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is
priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.
(Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
