WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Gold prices hovered around three-week lows for much of the trading session on Tuesday, but managed to settle slightly higher, amid rising worries about global economic slowdown.
The dollar stayed somewhat subdued, but held its gains against most major currencies.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut its global growth forecasts, citing the threat of a trade war, stalled Brexit talks, the ongoing U.S. government shutdown and a slowing Chinese economy.
On the Brexit front, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's much-anticipated 'plan B' on Brexit looked like a tweaked version of her Plan A, which suffered a historic parliamentary defeat last week.
Gold's marginal rise was also supported by a report that U.S. officials canceled preparatory trade talks this week with two Chinese vice ministers, ahead of a higher-level meeting in Washington later this month.
Gold futures for February ended up $0.80, at $1,283.40 an ounce, after falling to a low of $1,276.70 earlier in the session.
On Friday, gold futures ended down $9.70, or about 0.8%, at $1,282.60 an ounce.
Silver futures for March settled at $15.325 an ounce, down $0.074 from previous close.
Copper futures for March ended down $0.0595, at $2.6595 per pound.
The IMF now projects a 3.5% growth rate worldwide for 2019 and 3.6% for 2020, down 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points below its last forecasts in October.
In remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Monday, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde noted risks to the global economy are increasingly intertwined.
'Think of how higher tariffs and rising uncertainty over future trade policy fed into lower asset prices and higher market volatility,' Lagarde said. 'This in turn contributed to tightening financial conditions, including for advanced economies, which is a major risk factor in a world of high debt burdens. '
'Does that mean that a global recession is around the corner? The answer is 'no,' she added. 'But the risk of a sharper decline in global growth has certainly increased.'
In U.S. economic news today, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing a much steeper than expected drop in U.S. existing home sales in the month of December.
NAR said existing home sales plummeted by 6.4% to an annual rate of 4.99 million in December after jumping by 2.1% to a revised rate of 5.33 million in November. Economists had expected existing home sales to slump by 1.3% to a rate of 5.25 million from the 5.32 million originally reported for the previous month.
With the much bigger than expected decrease, existing home sales tumbled to their lowest level since November of 2015.
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