Gold slips, high oil prices limit downside

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FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold lost nearly half a percent to $1,772.19 an ounce by 0034 GMT, after posting a 3.3-percent gain last week.

* U.S. gold edged down 0.1 percent to $1,774.

* Brent crude oil hovered near a 10-month high above $125 a barrel on concerns of rising tensions with Iran. A surge in oil prices, along with hefty liquidity injections from the European Central Bank, have raised the spectre of a potential rise in inflation expectations.

* Euro zone countries pledged on Sunday at a Group of 20 meeting of finance leaders to reassess the strength of their bailout fund in March, which could clear the way for other G20 countries to give more funds to the International Monetary Fund.

* Eyes are on the European Central Bank this week, which is expected to inject nearly half a trillion euros to banks in the second allotment of the 3-year long-term refinancing operation (LTRO), to buy more time for Europe's politicians to find a solution to the euro zone debt crisis.

* Speculators raised their bullish bets in gold to the highest level in five months during the week to February 21, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed.

* Spot platinum, which rose to a five-month high at $1,731.5 and surged 5 percent last week, was flat at $1,707.49.

* South Africa's Impala Platinum (IMPJ.J) had agreed to rehire thousands of miners sacked for an illegal strike that has halted production for more than a month at the world's biggest platinum mine, a leading union said on Saturday.

DATA/EVENTS

0500 U.S. Build permits R chg mm Dec

0900 EZ Money-M3 3m moving av Jan

1500 U.S. Pending home sales Jan

PRICES

Precious metals prices 0034 GMT

Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume

Spot Gold 1772.19 -8.55 -0.48 13.33

Spot Silver 35.44 0.09 +0.25 27.99

Spot Platinum 1707.49 -0.05 -0.00 22.58

Spot Palladium 709.72 -0.28 -0.04 8.77

COMEX GOLD APR2 1774.00 -2.40 -0.14 13.22 3095

COMEX SILVER MAR2 35.45 0.11 +0.30 26.97 565

Euro/Dollar 1.3446

Dollar/Yen 81.10

COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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