Gold near 6-week peak ahead of Trump news conference

REUTERS - Gold held steady early Wednesday after touching six-week highs in the session before, with investors awaiting more policy cues from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's first news conference since the elections, due later in the day.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold was little changed at $1,187.76 an ounce by 0043 GMT. Bullion reached its highest level since Nov. 30 on Tuesday at $1,190.46.

* U.S. gold futures gained 0.2 percent to $1,187.80 per ounce.

* The market is looking for more clues on Trump's spending plans in the first news conference since his shock election win in November.

* A gauge of U.S. small business confidence rose to a 12-year high in December as optimism about the economy intensified among business owners following the November election, the National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday.

* The World Bank on Tuesday said global growth would accelerate slightly as recovering oil and commodity prices ease pressures on emerging-market commodity exporters and painful recessions in Brazil and Russia come to an end.

* Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker, one of the U.S. central bank's most reliable proponents of interest rate increases, will retire from his post in October, the Richmond Fed said in a statement on Tuesday.

* Operations at Canadian miner Yamana Gold Inc's El Peñón mine in Chile have been suspended for five days after one of its two unions representing underground workers went on strike and blockaded access to the mine, a union leader said on Tuesday.

* The Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX) is planning to launch three futures contracts for diamonds in March to provide exporters with a hedging tool, the exchange said on Tuesday.

* There will be "trouble for equity markets" if the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note moves beyond 3 percent, Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, warned on Tuesday.

MARKET NEWS

* The dollar trod water early on Wednesday, showing little inclination to move against major peers such as the euro and yen before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump fronts a news conference that could set the market's near-term direction.

DATA AHEAD (GMT)

0500 Japan Leading indicator November

0500 Japan Coincident indicator November

0930 Britain Industrial output November

0930 Britain Trade data November

(Reporting by Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Pullin)