* Dollar slide halts for now, keeping buyers sidelined
* SPDR holdings <XAUEXT-NYS-TT> up on Wed
By Risa Maeda
TOKYO, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Gold steadied on Thursday after a
weaker dollar helped push the precious metal above $1,000 an
ounce the previous day for the first time since Sept. 24.
Bullion rose 8.7 percent in the three months to the end of
September, its strongest performance since the first quarter of
2008, also bolstered by technical momentum and concerns about
potential inflation.
On Thursday, the dollar halted its slide but remained
defensive, keeping most gold investors on the sidelines, looking
for more signs of a stabilising global economy to see if they can
increase their appetite for assets riskier than the greenback.
Gold is often considered an alternative to the U.S. currency.
Spot gold <XAU=> was at $1,006.25 an ounce at 0307 GMT,
little changed from the notional close in New York of $1,006.70.
U.S. gold futures for December delivery <GCZ9> fell 0.2
percent to $1,007.40 after rising 1.5 percent on Wednesday.
Traders in Hong Kong were mostly away for a one-day public
holiday, while China's eight-day National Day break started on
Thursday.
"The gold market has already shifted its range, and I think
the upper side of the range will be $1,100 in the six months to
come," said Tatsufumi Okoshi, a senior economist at Nomura
Securities Co.
Stocks and commodities other than gold may have mostly
factored economic optimism into their prices, making bullion
relatively attractive, he said.
"Stocks are already on the defensive, bonds are too expensive
to buy and commodities other than gold have factored in most good
news into their prices. So gold looks a better choice than other
asset classes," Okoshi said.
Spot gold fell below $990 earlier this week. But the precious
metal got a boost from a sliding dollar on Wednesday as investors
put cash to work after U.S. data suggested the world's biggest
economy was recovering from recession. []
Investors also put money in gold-backed securities on the
rally on Wednesday. The world's largest gold-backed
exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust <GLD>, said its
holdings rose 1.22 tonnes to 1,095.327 tonnes on Wednesday.
[]
It was the first rise since Sept 21, when the holdings rose
by 15.256 tonnes to top 1,100 tonnes on a fall in gold prices to
around $995 per ounce.
Bullion hit an 18-month high of $1,023.85 an ounce on Sept.
17, just a few dollars shy of the March 2008 record high of
$1,030.80.
The market focus is on U.S. jobs data due on Friday, as well
as banks' quarterly earnings later this month to gauge the
prospects for the global economy, analysts said.
Gold is expected to take a hit if and when equity markets
pick up momentum and when it starts to look like central banks
could end their easy monetary policies.
Also, speculative positioning is a concern, with record net
long positions on the U.S. COMEX gold futures market for three
consecutive weeks.
Precious metals prices at 0310
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover
Spot Gold 1006.00 -0.70 -0.07 14.30
Spot Silver 16.63 0.04 +0.24 46.91
Spot Platinum 1285.00 -10.50 -0.81 37.88
Spot Palladium 292.50 -1.00 -0.34 58.54
TOCOM Gold 2917.00 29.00 +1.00 13.37 26273
TOCOM Platinum 3734.00 47.00 +1.27 40.80 7212
TOCOM Silver 481.00 6.40 +1.35 50.64 301
TOCOM Palladium 851.00 19.00 +2.28 54.73 153
Euro/Dollar 1.4630
Dollar/Yen 89.84
TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is priced
in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.
