* Gold hits four-week high, PGMs down
* ETF flows up as world equities lower
* Coming Up: U.S. CPI data; Friday 1230 GMT
(Updates with comments, refreshes prices)
By Amanda Cooper
LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Gold was set for its biggest
one-day rally in two months on Thursday as a fresh set of weak
economic data further eroded confidence in the global economy,
prompting a surge of interest in perceived safe-haven assets.
Wall Street stocks <.SPX> came under pressure after a
surprise rise in U.S. weekly jobless claims took the number of
people seeking unemployment benefit near six month highs, while
the euro <EUR=> was undermined by fresh concern about its weaker
member economies.
Gold <XAU=> was bid at $1,212.60 an ounce by 1415 GMT,
against $1,197.00 late in New York on Wednesday, still nearly 5
percent below late June's lifetime high around $1,264.
Gold for December delivery on COMEX <GCZ0> was up $15.8 at
$1,215.00 an ounce.
"It's a combination of a macro environment being favourable
to gold (and) actually physical demand has improved as well so
we would expect prices to gain some momentum," said Barclays
Capital strategist Suki Cooper, adding her team expected gold to
average $1,260 an ounce in the final three months of this year.
"There are concerns about the shape of economic recovery and
interest rates and inflation, those were very much in the
background when prices were struggling to break through the
$1,200-barrier."
The gold price is around its highest in four weeks, helped
also by the Federal Reserve's signal on Wednesday that it will
buy government bonds to stimulate a flagging economy and keep
interest rates low for an extended period of time.
Traders in London earlier pointed to a research note from
Goldman Sachs, which upgraded its forecast for the gold price,
as a driver to the rally in the price on Thursday.
"The recent sell-off has left speculative long positions in
gold oversold relative to U.S. real interest rates, which we
believe has set the stage for a rally to our six-month gold
price target of $1,300/oz," the bank said.
INVESTORS GO FOR GOLD
Although demand from key Asian consumers has been suppressed
by the rise in gold prices over the last week or so, the desire
for a safe haven as financial market volatility increases has
translated into a rise in investment demand. []
The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR
Gold Trust <GLD.P>, said its holdings rose for the first time in
a week. []
Silver <XAG=> benefited from a safe-haven bid, rising to
$18.04 an ounce from $17.84 the day before.
Fear of a global slowdown has hit Japan's Nikkei <>
particularly hard, as the index fell to a 13-month low on
Thursday, making it one of the worst performing major benchmark
indexes this year, which in turn undermined industrial
commodities such as platinum and crude oil <CLc1>.
Asian traders said earlier the drop in PGM prices was a
knee-jerk reaction to declines in equity markets. []
Spot platinum <XPT=> was last at $1,524.80 an ounce, down
around 2.2 percent from levels seen late in New York on
Wednesday, but up from an intraday low of $1,500.75, while
palladium <XPD=> was at $470.00 versus $477.00.
(Additional reporting by Lewa Pardomuan in Singapore; editing
by Alison Birrane)
