Gold steady as markets take a breather after Trump shock

By Apeksha Nair

REUTERS - Gold crawled up after dipping slightly on Thursday as global markets took respite from a massive sell-off in risky assets and digested Republican Donald Trump's shock U.S. presidential win, but gains were capped by firmer Asian stocks and a steady dollar.

Spot gold was up 0.5 percent at $1,283.76 an ounce at 0505 GMT, while U.S. gold futures rose 0.8 percent to $1,283.70 per ounce.

Asian shares rebounded on Thursday and the dollar firmed in a remarkable snapback from the shock of Trump's presidential victory, though market participants were still concerned about the lack of details on the president-elect's policy path.

"Given that Donald trump hardly has any policy details to back up his general proposals, it is not clear yet what effects his presidency will have on the various markets," INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir said in a note.

Until Trump's cabinet starts to take shape and as he expands on his ideas, gold markets will re-focus towards the course of U.S. rate hikes, gyrations in the dollar and the direction of the U.S. stock market, he added.

"All three - for the moment - seem to be making a negative case for gold over the short-term," Meir said.

Gold rose nearly 5 percent to touch $1,337.40 on Wednesday, its highest in six weeks. But prices have since retreated as U.S. markets reacted positively to the Trump win.

"Post the Trump announcement there was a typical kneejerk reaction. We saw a lot of industrial scrap sellers in the market, which helped to quash some of the upward pressure on prices and the fall back below $1,300," said Spencer Campbell, general manager with Kaloti Precious Metals in Singapore.

Trump's victory throws into question the core assumption in global financial markets that the Fed will raise interest rates soon.

"While higher uncertainty warrants an allocation to gold from a portfolio construction perspective, the tactical outlook remains mixed," Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Wednesday.

Spot gold is expected to fall to $1,249 per ounce, as suggested by its wave pattern and a Fibonacci retracement analysis, according to a Reuters technical analyst.

Silver was up 0.54 percent at $18.57 an ounce.

Platinum dropped 0.22 percent to $996.50 and palladium slipped 0.2 percent to $676.30.

(Reporting by Apeksha Nair in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Nallur Sethuraman; Editing by Richard Pullin and Joseph Radford)