FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold held its ground at $1,922.26 per ounce,
as of 0032 GMT. U.S. gold futures were down 0.1% at
$1,921.40.
* Traders mostly expect the U.S. central bank to scale back
rate hikes to 25 basis points (bps) at its two-day policy
meeting that ends on Wednesday.
* Low interest-rate environment decreases the opportunity
cost of holding non-yielding bullion.
* Investors are pricing in a 50-bps rate hike from the Bank
of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank (ECB), which also
have policy meetings this week.
* SPDR Gold Trust , the world's largest gold-backed
exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.2% to 917.05
tonnes on Monday.
* China's fiscal revenue rose 0.6% in 2022 from a year
earlier, slowing sharply from a 10.7% increase in 2021 due to
huge tax rebates for businesses to support the COVID-ravaged
economy, data from the finance ministry showed on Monday.
* Spot silver lost 0.2% to $23.56 per ounce, platinum was steady at $1,009.04, and palladium dipped 0.2% to $1,635.48. DATA/EVENTS (GMT) 0030 Australia Retail Sales MM Final Dec 0130 China NBS Manufacturing PMI Jan 0630 France GDP Preliminary Q4 0745 France CPI (EU Norm) Prelim YY Jan 0745 France Producer Prices YY Dec 0855 Germany Unemployment Chg SA Jan 0855 Germany Unemployment Rate SA Jan 0100 EU GDP Flash Prelim Q4 0900 Germany CPI Prelim YY Jan 0900 Germany HICP Prelim YY Jan WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Federal Reserve's FOMC starts its two-day meeting on interest rates (Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
