Gold dips as dollar ticks up, but finds support at $1,225/oz

By Jan Harvey

LONDON (Reuters) - Gold eased on Wednesday in line with a firmer dollar, but found support around $1,225 an ounce as a sharp rally in cyclical assets like stocks and copper following Donald Trump's election to the U.S. presidency ran out of steam.

The metal has shed more than $100 an ounce from last Wednesday's post-election high on the back of a surge in bond yields and sharply higher appetite for risk.

Spot gold was down 0.1 percent at $1,226.20 an ounce at 1035 GMT, while U.S. gold futures for December delivery were up $1.40 an ounce at $1,225.90.

The dollar inched up to a fresh 11-month high versus a currency basket on Wednesday, though major banks sounded slightly more divided on its immediate prospects after a week-long rally driven by the post-election surge in U.S. bond yields.

"The most important thing that we saw for gold (after the election) was that the dollar appreciated," LBBW analyst Thorsten Proettel said. "Also, yields on 10-year Treasuries went up 50 basis points, which is poison for gold, as a non-interest bearing asset."

"It seems there is something of a bottom around $1,225," he said.

Trump's election to the U.S. presidency sent bond yields surging to 2016 highs this week, pushing the U.S. dollar sharply higher, as investors bet his administration's policies would stoke inflation.

Stock markets stabilised on Wednesday, with European stocks little changed after rallying more than 3 percent over the past week from their post-election lows. Prices of industrial commodities like copper and crude oil also retreated.

Gold is also expected to also be feeling the pressure from an imminent hike in U.S. interest rates, which are tipped to rise for only the second time in nearly a decade next month.

Investor appetite for gold remained slack, with the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Shares, saying its holdings fell another 1.5 tonnes on Tuesday to a 4-1/2 month low of 927.45 tonnes.

"ETF holdings have been reduced by over 50 tonnes since the result of the U.S. presidential election was announced last Wednesday," Commerzbank said in a note.

In the major physical markets, some Indian gold traders are placing bulk short-term import orders on fears that Prime Minister Narendra Modi might soon add curbs on overseas purchases of the metal to his withdrawal of high-denomination banknotes in his fight against 'black money'.

Silver was down 0.7 percent at $16.96 an ounce, and platinum was 0.8 percent lower at $928.20. Palladium was down 1.3 percent at $696.60.

(Additional reporting by Apeksha Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)