* Irish government to map out 4-year plan
* Book-squaring seen before U.S. holiday
* Coming up: U.S. initial claims, durable goods; 1330 GMT
(Updates with comment, details; refreshes prices; changes
dateline from SINGAPORE)
By Amanda Cooper
LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Gold held on to the gains of the
past two days on Wednesday, driven by mounting concern about the
risk of Ireland's debt crisis spreading to other euro zone
economies, pushing bullion in euros to its highest since June.
A deadly exchange of military fire between North and South
Korea on Tuesday further unsettled investors, putting Asian
stocks under pressure and encouraging a sweep into perceived
safe havens such as gold, government bonds and the Swiss franc.
[]
In spite of the dollar hitting two-month highs against a
basket of currencies <.DXY>, gold <XAU=> was last steady at
$1,375.99 an ounce at 1030 GMT, having earlier risen by as much
as 0.4 percent above $1,381.00. U.S. gold futures <GCZ0> dipped
0.2 percent to $1,375.80.
"Gold's been gritting its teeth in the last couple of days
and going contrary to what one might have expected with the
dollar move and really that has to boil down to the
uncertainty," said Ole Hansen, senior manager at Saxo Bank.
"We've got political risk from the Korea situation and then
more importantly...people are talking about the potential of the
euro not surviving. I don't see that happening but just the fact
that it is being talked about is enough to raise the bar."
The euro hit two-month lows on Wednesday as spreads on
peripheral euro zone bonds, such as Portugal and Spain, hit
record highs, while gold priced in euros <XAUEUR=R> rallied to
its highest level since early June.
PAIN
In Ireland, the government said it will explain on Wednesday
how it plans to save 15 billion euros over the next four years,
inflicting more pain on voters to prove that it can tackle the
country's debt. []
"I am not sure if the market is completely convinced that
the tension would lead to something more," said Darren
Heathcote, head of trading at Investec Australia in Sydney.
"I think it's being pushed and pulled by the euro as well at
the moment."
Bullion dealers in Singapore noted selling of gold bars and
scraps from consumers in Indonesia and Thailand, but China saw
buying on dips related to the tension in Korea.
Gold's negative correlation to the U.S. dollar reached its
weakest since mid-September on Wednesday as nervous investors
ditched the euro and other risk-related assets such as stocks
and corporate debt.
In terms of factors fuelling a bid for safe-haven
investments, Michael Widmer, a strategist with Bank of
America-Merrill Lynch, said the euro zone debt crisis was the
dominant one.
"If you go back through the past ten or 20 years, you look
at how gold prices react to geopolitical uncertainty, those
uncertainties were relatively positive, but you don't tend to
see a sustainable impact on prices if it's just a one-off and
that is probably the same thing time around as well," he said,
referring to the tensions between the two Koreas.
Holdings of gold in the world's largest gold-backed
exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust <GLD> held unchanged
for a second day, indicating no large-scale withdrawal from gold
by investors.
Silver <XAG=> eased, releasing earlier gains to last trade
at $27.41 an ounce, down 0.3 percent on the day. The ratio of
silver to gold rose for a second day above 50, reflecting the
outperformance of gold as it now takes more ounces of silver to
buy one ounce of bullion.
Holdings in the iShares Silver Trust <SLV>, the world's
largest physically-backed exchange-traded fund, rose to record
highs for three consecutive sessions, signalling strong
investment demand in the metal, seen as an alternate investment
from gold. []
Platinum <XPT=> rose 0.5 percent to $1,654.99 an ounce,
recovering from two straight days of declines, while palladium
<XPD=> fell for a third day, down 0.4 percent at $683.72, ahead
of the release of economic data in the United States including
weekly jobless figures, monthly durable goods orders and new
home sales.
The U.S. economy grew faster than previously estimated in
the third quarter, but a slump in sales of previously owned
homes in October indicated the recovery remains too anaemic to
reduce high unemployment. []
(Additional reporting by Rujun Shen and Lewa Pardomuan in
Singapore; editing by Sue Thomas)
