SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold was hovering near five-week highs on Monday as traders bet the U.S. Federal Reserve would stick with its bullion-friendly stimulus measures at a policy meeting later this week.
FUNDAMENTALS
Spot gold had eased 0.3 percent to $1,348.44 an ounce by 0010 GMT, after posting a near 3-percent gain the week before.
Fed officials are unlikely to make any shift in monetary policy this week and will continue to buy back bonds at an $85 billion monthly rate as they wait for more evidence of how badly Washington's budget battle has hurt the U.S. economy.
The central bank's policy-setting committee is to release a statement on its decision on Wednesday, at the end of its two-day meeting.
Turkey and Kazakhstan raised their gold holdings in September, while Russia's bullion reserves eased, according to the International Monetary Fund.
SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 4.50 tonnes to 872.02 tonnes on Friday.
Hedge funds and money managers cut bullish bets in futures and options of U.S. gold markets for the week ended October 1, but they increased their net longs in silver futures, a report by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed.
South Africa's hardline AMCU mining union threatened more strikes at the world's top platinum producers, just weeks after a deal to end an 11-day stoppage over job cuts.
(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Joseph Radford)
