SINGAPORE, Jan 15 - Platinum hovered on Tuesday around three-month highs hit in the previous session when supply concerns helped the metal narrow the gap with gold, while gold traded barely changed.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold traded little changed at $1,667.59 an ounce by 0036 GMT.
* U.S. gold was nearly flat at $1,667.90.
* Spot platinum inched down 0.1 percent to $1,652.51. The gold-platinum spread narrowed to $12.30 an ounce, its smallest in nine months. Supply concerns as well as an improving global economic outlook drove investors to metals with industrial applications, such as platinum and palladium, from safe-haven gold.
* Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged U.S. lawmakers on Monday to lift the country's borrowing limit to avoid a potentially disastrous debt default, warning that the economy was still at risk from political gridlock over the deficit.
* The United States expects to run out of tools to avoid a default between mid-February and early March, potentially causing lasting damage to the U.S. economy and its creditworthiness, the Treasury said on Monday.
* South Africa's Anglo American Platinum is likely to sell or shut its Union mine as part of a review of its platinum business by parent Anglo American, a person familiar with the matter said.
* The U.S. economy is expected to grow by 2.5 percent in 2013 and 3.5 percent in 2014, and the unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent this year, said Charles Evans, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
* Spot palladium inched up 0.3 percent to $703.25. Though many expect the palladium market to tighten this year, higher prices may attract a load of stockpiled and recycled metal onto the market.
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MARKET NEWS
* The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower on Monday as worries over demand for Apple products drove down its shares and investors braced for earnings disappointments.
* The dollar languished at 11-month lows against the euro on Tuesday after comments from the head of the Federal Reserve suggested the central bank was in no hurry to withdraw monetary stimulus from the world's biggest economy.
DATA/EVENTS (GMT)
0800 Germany GDP 2012
1000 EZ Eurostat trade nsa, EUR Nov
1245 U.S. ICSC chain stores yy Weekly
1330 U.S. PPI inflation yy, NSA Dec
1330 U.S. Producer prices mm Dec
1330 U.S. Producer prices, core mm Dec
1330 U.S. Producer prices, core yy Dec
1330 U.S. Retail sales mm Dec
1500 U.S. Business inventories mm Nov
PRICES
Precious metals prices 0036 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume
Spot Gold 1667.59 0.79 +0.05 -0.42
Spot Silver 31.04 0.03 +0.10 2.51
Spot Platinum 1652.51 -1.74 -0.11 7.66
Spot Palladium 703.25 2.25 +0.32 1.63
COMEX GOLD FEB3 1667.90 -1.50 -0.09 -0.47 1983
COMEX SILVER MAR3 31.06 -0.05 -0.16 2.75 1101
Euro/Dollar 1.3378
Dollar/Yen 89.52
COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months
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