By Swati Verma
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Gold was little changed on Friday and poised for the biggest weekly fall in seven as investors sought out higher returns than those from holding the non-interest bearing yellow metal by buying into riskier assets.
Spot gold was up 0.1 percent at $1,264.86 per ounce as of 0750 GMT, and U.S. gold futures were also up 0.1 percent at $1,266.80.
Gold is on track for a weekly drop of about 1.5 percent, the biggest weekly percentage fall since the week of March 10, but is heading towards a gain of about 1.3 percent for the month.
"Technically gold has not had a great week ... there seems to be some pressure as the risk-on sentiment is still on despite Trump's tax plans disappointing and especially situation in North Korea does not seem to be inflamed," a Hong-Kong based trader said.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump proposed deep U.S. tax cuts, mainly for businesses, that would make the federal deficit balloon if enacted, drawing a cautious welcome from fiscal conservatives and financial markets.
"People are pulling out of gold and moving to risky assets like shares and currencies to make profits," said Brian Lan, managing director at gold dealer GoldSilver Central in Singapore.
Asian stocks looked set to close a strong week on a positive note, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan on track to end the week up 1.7 percent, which would be its best week in six. [MKTS/GLOB]
"At the moment there are not any major events until the second round of French elections (on May 7), so they are looking at other ways to get more returns," said Lan.
Holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, fell 0.1 percent to 853.36 tonnes on Thursday. Holdings have fallen over 6 tonnes since Tuesday. [GOL/ETF]
"People are probably going to buy gold around $1,250 and sell it around $1,280. There is nothing on the news to aggressively buy gold at this point of time," the Hong-Kong based trader added.
Silver was up 0.6 percent at $17.32 an ounce, after touching a 1-1/2-month low of $17.19 in the previous session.
Silver was on track to end the week down over 3 percent, and was headed for the worst month since November.
Platinum gained 0.4 percent at $943.65 an ounce and was heading towards its worst week in seven.
Palladium was steady at $815 after hitting $817.55 an ounce, the highest since March 2015. It was the only weekly gainer among the precious metals, set for a 3 percent rise this week.
(Reporting by Swati Verma and Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Subhranshu Sahu)
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