The physical sector saw light bullion purchases from Indonesia ahead of next week's Muslim holiday. Other precious metals were also volatile, with silver, platinum and palladium trading below their recent highs.
Spot gold
Gold hit a two-week high of $597.50 an ounce on Tuesday, just below the key barrier of $600, before a drop in oil ignited selling from speculators.
Investec Australia pegged support at $570 an ounce.
"There's some buying from Indonesia but I don't think they want to stock up too much. Gold may attempt to break $600 again but I think oil will play a crucial role," said a dealer in Singapore.
Indonesians have returned to jewelry shops ahead of the Eid al-Fitr celebration, but dealers said purchases from jewelry makers had been limited, suggesting that many factories relied on old stocks.
The World Gold Council puts Indonesia's gold consumption at 81 tonnes in 2005, making it Southeast Asia's main buyer of the precious metal used in jewelry and investment.
Premiums for gold bars were steady at between 20 and 60 U.S. cents an ounce to the spot London price in Singapore
Crude oil
"I think the oil price will gradually get better. If oil is over $60, the gold price will increase but I don't expect it to happen at this moment," said Yukuji Sonoda, precious metals analyst at Daiichi Commodities in Tokyo.
"$600 is still a big resistance," he said.
Ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are scheduled to meet in Qatar on Thursday to clear a deal to remove 1 million barrels from daily output to try to stem oil's drop from a high of $78.40 in July.
But OPEC has been divided on whether it should cut output from actual production of roughly 27.5 million barrels per day (bpd) or from its nominal 28 million bpd ceiling.
Key gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange
Investors also took profits after pushing up the contract to a two-week high of 2,310 yen on Tuesday.
In other precious metals, platinum
Palladium
Silver
