* Gold slips below $900 for first time since Thursday
* FOMC starts two-day policy meeting
* Euro falls versus dollar, oil also down
(Updates prices)
By Lewa Pardomuan
SINGAPORE, April 28 (Reuters) - Gold dipped below $900 on
Tuesday, off a near four-week high hit the previous day, after
the dollar gained against the euro and speculative buying
sparked by fears of a global flu pandemic receded.
Investors shifted their attention to a Federal Reserve
meeting at a time when the U.S. economy has shown some signs of
improvement. Falling oil prices also prompted investors to lock
in profit after gold's recent rally. []
The world's top epidemiologists fought on Tuesday to curb
the spread of a new strain of flu that has killed up to 149
people in Mexico in a couple of weeks and may have spread as
far as Asia. []
Gold <XAU=> was at $896.40 an ounce, down $10.35 from New
York's notional close, the first time it has fallen below $900
since Thursday. It jumped to its highest since early April at
$918.25 on Monday.
"The Fed is likely to keep rates as they are but the
markets will be interested in listening to what they have to
say about the economy and what they are going to do moving
forward," said Adriah Koh, an analyst at Phillip Futures in
Singapore.
"I am still a little hopeful for gold to head higher, but I
guess we need more confirmation perhaps over today or the next
for gold to head higher," he said.
The euro slipped to $1.3008 versus the dollar while the yen
rallied after the Wall Street Journal reported regulators have
told Bank of America and Citigroup they may need to raise more
capital based on early results of the government's "stress
tests" of lenders. []
Asian stocks fell for a second day on Tuesday on worries
about the potential economic fallout from the swine virus
outbreak, although reaction from investors was still limited
due to uncertainty about the full impact. []
"I don't think the full implications of the swine flu are
really understood yet so we cannot really attribute the
movements to that. I guess the broader picture will be focused
on the stock markets and the stress test results," said Koh.
Policy-makers are likely to focus on whether signs of life
seen in the economy in February are signalling that the worst
is over for a severe recession that started in December 2007,
or just the prelude to another decline.
"There's selling that triggered some stops below $900 but
the market was so thin. We don't even see any interest from the
physical side after the drop. It seems nobody is doing
anything," said a dealer in Hong Kong.
The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the
SPDR Gold Trust <GLD>, said holdings remained unchanged from
the previous day at 1,104.45 tonnes on April 27. []
The amount of metal ETF Securities holds to back its London
platinum and palladium exchange-traded securities rose by 2.4
percent and 4.4 percent respectively in the week to last
Friday, the company said. []
Precious metals prices at 0551 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg Day ago pct MA 30
RSI Spot gold $896.40 -$10.35 -1.14% -0.07% $860.10
53
Spot silver $12.68 -$0.21 -1.63% +5.84% $11.29
58
Spot plat $1122.00 -$17.00 -1.49% -4.39% $1158.05
35
COMEX gold $897.90 -$9.60 -1.06% -1.72% $906.80
57
TOCOM gold 2,782 -59 -2.08% -2.42% 2,879
38
TOCOM plat 3,478 -104 -2.90% -5.82% 3,667
31
Currencies
Euro/dlr $1.301 -$0.022 -1.68% -1.81%
Dlr/yen 96.02 -0.75 -0.78% -1.16%
(Additional reporting by Risa Maeda in Tokyo, Editing by Ben
Tan)
