By Vijaykumar Vedala
REUTERS - Gold held near its highest in four weeks on Monday after rising almost 1 percent in the previous session, buoyed as geopolitical tensions boosted its safe-haven appeal.
Spot gold was flat at $1,266.19 per ounce at 0400 GMT. On Friday, it climbed 0.9 percent to touch its strongest since May 1 at $1,269.50.
U.S. gold futures slipped 0.2 percent to $1,265.8.
Political tensions surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump are providing some safe-haven support for gold, OCBC analyst Barnabas Gan said.
The market is also watching out for the Federal Open Market Committee meeting next month for any cues on U.S. Federal Reserve's stance on interest rate hikes and balance sheet reduction intentions, Gan added.
Trump attacked the news media and dismissed leaks from the White House as "fake news" on Sunday, following reports his son-in-law tried to set up a secret channel of communications with Moscow before he took office. The ongoing furore has raised concerns about his ability to push through promised fiscal stimulus.
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Gold, which is used as an alternative investment during times of political and financial uncertainty, has gained more than 4 percent since hitting an eight-week low of $1,213.81 on May 9.
Spot gold may climb to $1,276 per ounce, as it has broken above a resistance at $1,264, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.
"We remain friendly on gold and suspect that we will likely push higher over the course of the coming week," INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir said in a note.
"A weaker dollar, coupled with rising geopolitical tensions should keep the precious metal relatively buoyant."
Hedge funds and other money managers increased their net long position in COMEX gold for the first time in four weeks, in the week ended May 23, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed on Friday.
Many traders will be away from their desks for public holidays in the United States and Britain on Monday, with U.S. gold futures closing early.
Among other precious metals, silver touched its highest since April 28 at $17.39 earlier in the day and was last down 0.1 percent at $17.33 per ounce.
Silver's more than 3 percent weekly gain last week was its biggest since the week ended Jan. 6, 2017.
Platinum, which touched an over one-month high of $965.80 an ounce on Friday, dipped 0.1 percent, to $954.75 per ounce.
Palladium, which rose 4 percent last week, was up 0.3 percent at $792.05 per ounce.
(Reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Joseph Radford and Richard Pullin)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)