* Gold gives up gains, falls from 2-week high
* Holdings by SPDR Gold <XAUEXT-NYS-TT> steady
By Miho Yoshikawa
TOKYO, June 29 (Reuters) - Gold softened a touch to around
$935 on Monday on position adjustments, giving up gains from the
previous session when it briefly rose to a two-week high.
Recent encouraging data from the U.S. and easing inflation
worries have dulled some of bullion's appeal as an alternative
investment, causing the precious metal to largely move within a
broad band between $920 and $940.
Gold briefly rose to $948.20 per ounce on Friday, its
highest since June 12.
Shuji Sugata, a manager at Mitsubishi Corp Futures &
Securities, said the metal was leaning towards $940, supported
by last week's comments by China that it might consider
reviewing its assets.
On Thursday, the head of the economic department of China's
Communist Party policy research office said the country should
buy more gold, and that purchasing land in the United States was
a better option for China than buying U.S. Treasuries.
[]
"Although China has been saying this since last year, it is
a factor supporting gold," he said.
Gold <XAU=> was at $936.45 per ounce at 0525 GMT, down 0.2
percent from the notional close of $938.05 in New York.
Sugata said gold was unlikely to move dramatically for the
next few days, however, given that it is the end of the month.
He added that he did not anticipate much market volatility
this week although trade was likely to slow ahead of the U.S.
Independence Day holiday when liquidity was expected to fall,
often a scenario for prices to fluctuate sharply.
"I think the market will lack clear direction as investors
will mostly probably try to simply adjust positions," he said.
U.S. gold futures for August delivery <GCQ9> were at $937.1
an ounce, down 0.4 percent from $941 on the COMEX division of
the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.
The dollar steadied on Monday after falling broadly late
last week on China's renewed call for for a super-sovereign
reserve currency and as improving appetite for risk dampened its
appeal. [] []
Reflecting that gold may have lost some of its appeal to
investors, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund,
the SPDR Gold Trust <GLD>, said its holdings remained at
1,125.74 tonnes as of June 26, when it fell 0.5 percent.
[]
It is currently down 0.7 percent from a record volume of
1,134.03 tonnes, marked on June 1.
Noncommercial net long U.S. gold futures positions fell 5.3
percent to 166,294 lots in the week to June 23 from 175,543
lots, a weekly report by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission showed. []
In other precious metals markets, spot silver <XAG=> fell by
as much as 1.4 percent to $13.86 per ounce, down from the
notional New York close of $14.06 and heading towards a roughly
two-month low.
PRICES
Precious metals prices at 0537 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover
Spot Gold 936.00 -2.05 -0.22 6.35
Spot Silver 13.97 -0.09 -0.64 23.41
Spot Platinum 1184.00 -12.50 -1.04 27.04
Spot Palladium 244.00 0.50 +0.21 32.25
TOCOM Gold 2881.00 -38.00 -1.30 11.97 35658
TOCOM Platinum 3652.00 -72.00 -1.93 37.71 11151
TOCOM Silver 428.00 -7.80 -1.79 34.04 283
TOCOM Palladium 759.00 1.00 +0.13 38.00 168
Euro/Dollar 1.4026
Dollar/Yen 95.35
TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is
priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.
(Additional reporting by Chikako Mogi; Editing by Chris
Gallagher)
