Gold steadies after fall as Fed keeps patient stance on rates

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold steadied above $1,280 an ounce on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve reiterated it would be patient in deciding when to raise interest rates, keeping bullion trading in recent ranges.

Spot gold was nearly flat at $1,284.91 an ounce by 0034 GMT, not far below a five-month top of $1,306.20 reached last week.

U.S. gold for February delivery was also little changed at $$1,284.70 an ounce.

In Wednesday's policy statement, the Federal Open Market Committee said that it would take "financial and international developments" into account when determining when to raise rates, adding a reference to global markets for the first time since January 2013.

The Fed said the U.S. economy was expanding "at a solid pace" with strong job gains, putting the central bank on track with its rate hike plans this year although it repeated it would be "patient" in deciding when to raise benchmark borrowing costs from zero.

Some analysts viewed that as a dovish bias in the Fed, which could support gold, a non-interest-bearing asset.

China plans to cut its growth target to around 7 percent in 2015, its lowest goal in 11 years, as policymakers try to manage slowing growth, job creation and pursuing reforms intended to make the economy more driven by market forces.

Leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras threw down an open challenge to international creditors by halting privatisation plans agreed under the country's bailout deal, prompting a third day of heavy losses on financial markets.

Holdings of the largest gold-backed exchange-traded-fund (ETF), New York's SPDR Gold Trust GLD, rose 1.3 percent on Tuesday from Monday.

(Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr.; Editing by Joseph Radford)