Gold near 5-month high; poised for best week since June

By Swati Verma

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Gold on Friday hovered near the 5-month high hit in the previous session and was set for its biggest weekly percentage rise since June as a weaker dollar and geopolitical worries over the Middle East and North Korea stoked safe-haven demand.

Spot gold was down 0.1 percent at $1,286.25 per ounce by 0820 GMT in thin trade due to a public holiday in many countries.

Bullion prices hit their highest since early November at $1,288.64 an ounce the session before. The metal was on track for its biggest weekly gain since early June, up about 2.6 percent this week.

"Everyone is nervous about the (geo-political) situation at the moment and nobody wants to sell gold, so it is pretty firm this week," said Yuichi Ikemizu, head of commodity trading at Standard Bank in Tokyo.

"People do not want to hold any positions over the weekend since many markets are closed."

U.S. gold futures were up 0.9 percent at $1,290.10.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, was down 0.1 percent at 100.470.

Gold, often seen as an alternative investment during times of political and financial uncertainty, benefited from the risk-averse sentiment in the market.

"It's very hard to decide which direction gold will go right now... if (U.S. President Donald) Trump is to perform some military action against North Korea, gold will definitely reach $1,300," said a trader with a Shanghai-based bullion bank.

Trump said on Thursday that North Korea is a problem that "will be taken care of", as China urged caution and speculation rose that Pyongyang might be on the verge of a sixth nuclear test.

The U.S. military said on Thursday that it dropped "the mother of all bombs," the largest non-nuclear device it has ever unleashed in combat, on a network of caves and tunnels used by Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State on Thursday denied a Syrian army report it had carried out an air strike that had hit poison gas supplies belonging to IS and caused the deaths of hundreds of people.

Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.77 percent to 848.92 tonnes on Thursday.

Among other precious metals, spot silver was up 0.1 percent at $18.52 an ounce, after touching a five-month high of $18.599 in the previous session.

Platinum was up 0.2 percent at $971.15 and palladium was up 0.1 percent at $795.08.

(Reporting by Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Vyas Mohan and Subhranshu Sahu)