Gold hovered near its highest
level in more than three months on Tuesday, but investors may
hold off chasing the metal too strongly ahead of the release of
key U.S. data.
Spot gold hit a high of $641.70 an ounce before
slipping to $639.20/640.20 an ounce by 0350 GMT, down from
$640.60/641.60 late in New York.
 The metal had rallied to its highest since August 11 at
$641.75 an ounce on Monday on a weaker dollar, firm crude oil
prices as well as purchases after the U.S. Thanksgiving
Day holiday.
 Profit taking may persist, but dealers said gold would find
support around $635. Investors await comments from Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the economic outlook due at
1730 GMT and U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product data due
on Wednesday.
 "If you've made some money at this stage, I guess you would
want to take some profit. I think it's going to be a tight
range and gold is pretty well tied to the U.S. dollar," said a
dealer in Sydney.
 "But the technical picture looks better," he said.
 The euro inched up to $1.3145, closing in on a
20-month high of $1.3180 hit on electronic trading platform EBS
on Monday. The dollar dipped to 115.95 yen from around
116.10 yen in late U.S. trade.
 "There was no fresh buying at around $642. People are still
talking about buying at lower levels," said Ronald Leung,
director of Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.
 "There will be another range trade of $630 to $650," he
said.
 Benchmark gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity
Exchange, currently October 2007, fell 9 yen per gram to 2,411
yen, having risen to a 2-week high the previous day on
fund buying.
Platinum dropped to its lowest level in more than
three weeks at $1,130 an ounce as fund selling continued after
talk of an exchange-traded platinum fund subsided.It has lost around nearly 19 percent in value sincetouching a record high of $1,395
last week. The metal was last quoted at $1,140/1,150 late in New York.

Silver edged up to $13.47/13.54 an ounce from
$13.46/13.53 late in New York.Palladium rose to $324/329 an ounce from $323/328.