By Marcy Nicholson and Jan Harvey
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Gold dipped 1 percent to a four-week low on Wednesday as the dollar strengthened and markets looked ahead to a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that will be closely watched for further clues on U.S. interest rate policy.
Yellen is scheduled to address a meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Friday. Recent hawkish comments from Fed policymakers have raised investors' expectations that she might adopt a less cautious tone on rates.
Rising U.S. interest rates increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion and boost the dollar, in which gold is priced.
Dollar strength helped push gold lower on Wednesday. [FRX/]
Spot gold was down 1 percent at $1,324.66 an ounce by 3:06 p.m. EDT (1906 GMT).
U.S. gold futures for December delivery settled down 1.2 percent at $1,329.70, with more than 12,000 contracts trading within one minute at 8:41 a.m., when the price fell a steep $9, tumbling below the 50-day moving average.
"It's all still up to what happens at Jackson Hole," UBS analyst Joni Teves said. "Up until then, it's very hard to make a call."
"Based on market pricing, it seems there is a general expectation for a December move, so (the statement) would have to be quite hawkish for markets to bring forward that expectation to September," she said.
According to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, markets are pricing in a 21 percent chance of a rate increase at the Fed's September policy meeting, and a 50 percent chance of at least one rise by the end of the year. The U.S. central bank also has scheduled policy meetings for November and December.
"The selling continued and we saw a total of 40,000 contracts in a half-hour period trading down," said Miguel Perez-Santalla, vice president of Heraeus Metal Management in New York.
"The talk is that expectations are that the Fed, after the Jackson Hole meeting, will come out more hawkish than suspected."
Spot silver fell for the fourth straight session, and was down 1.2 percent at $18.55 an ounce, after falling to $18.51, the lowest level since June 30.
China's silver imports in July fell 36 percent, customs data showed on Wednesday, while platinum imports were down by nearly half. Palladium imports rose 17 percent.
Platinum was down 1.6 percent at $1,081.40 after falling below its 50-day moving average to $1,071.20, the lowest level since July 25. Palladium fell as much as 2.8 percent to $676.97, also the lowest point since July 25.
(Additional reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by David Clarke and Paul Simao)
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