* Gold capped as dollar in range, technical charts bearish
* SPDR gold ETF holdings <XAUEXT-NYS-TT> flat since June 5
By Risa Maeda
TOKYO, June 22 (Reuters) - Gold was little changed on Monday,
hovering around $933 an ounce as the dollar stayed within its
recent range, with investors reluctant to chase the metal higher
after it fell for three straight weeks.
In early June, a weakening dollar and increasing demand for
gold-backed funds helped bullion hit a three-month high of
$989.80 an ounce. But the dollar has since pared its losses,
dulling some of gold's allure as an alternative investment.
Closely watched U.S. consumer and producer price data last
week was also sharply lower than economists had forecast, and
dampened gold's appeal as a hedge against inflation.
"We don't expect too much action in the market ... Spot
traders have lost interest in this range-bound market," said
Louis Lok, a dealer at Bank of China in Hong Kong, referring to
the recent range of between $927 and $950.
"We need something exciting, or news, to make the market go
live again," he said.
Spot gold <XAU=> was almost flat at $933.05 an ounce at 0542
GMT, down 0.1 percent from New York's notional close of $933.80
and above Friday's low of $930.45.
Bullion fell $4, or 0.4 percent, last week, marking its third
straight week of losses.
The three-week decline, partly due to selling related to the
unwinding of long positions in U.S. gold futures, has worsened
technical charts and discouraged fresh buying, traders said.
U.S. gold futures for August delivery <GCQ9> edged lower to
$933.80 per ounce, down 0.3 percent from Friday's settlement on
the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
A weekly report by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission showed noncommercial net long U.S. gold futures
positions fell 7.5 percent to 175,543 lots in the week to June 16
from 189,674 lots the week before []
The U.S. Federal Reserve holds a policy-setting meeting on
Tuesday and Wednesday and the market is waiting to see what the
central bank says about the economic outlook, traders said.
Investors are still trying to decide if earlier bets on
riskier assets such as stocks have been overdone in light of the
global economy's pace of recovery.
"People are disappointed that gold and the euro have failed
to break decisively above resistance (against the dollar) at $945
for gold and $1.40 for the euro," said Kaname Gokon, deputy
general manager at Okato Shoji Co's research section.
"Gold so far is managing to hover slightly below $933.50, but
if this mood continues, people may test gold's downside towards
$910," he said.
The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the
SPDR Gold Trust <GLD>, said its holdings stood at 1,132.15 tonnes
as of June 19, unchanged since June 5. []
Precious metals prices at 0545 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover
Spot Gold 932.95 -0.85 -0.09 6.00
Spot Silver 14.03 -0.16 -1.13 23.94
Spot Platinum 1197.00 -7.50 -0.62 28.43
Spot Palladium 242.50 -1.50 -0.61 31.44
TOCOM Gold 2892.00 -24.00 -0.82 12.40 22846
TOCOM Platinum 3721.00 -51.00 -1.35 40.31 12100
TOCOM Silver 434.00 -7.60 -1.72 35.92 340
TOCOM Palladium 760.00 -1.00 -0.13 38.18 376
Euro/Dollar 1.3898
Dollar/Yen 96.03
TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is
priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.
(Addional reporting by Miho Yoshikawa; Editing by Joseph Radford)
