The U.S. dollar gold price hovered just below $1,610/oz for most of Wednesday morning's trading in London—in line with last Friday's close—while stocks and commodities ticked lower and US Treasuries gained.
The silver price dipped below $28 an ounce, although like gold, silver remains slightly above where it ended last week.
"The gold price has been range trading for the past couple of months," says Commerzbank senior technical analyst Axel Rudolph, noting that the upper end of the range "is seen at the June $1641 peak".
"There is a lack of momentum in the market," adds one dealer in Hong Kong.
"Prices are unlikely to break above $1620 but falling below $1,570/oz is also difficult. Many traders are more interested in watching the Olympics than trading."
In India, which is experiencing a drier than usual monsoon, physical gold dealers continue to report subdued demand in what is traditionally the world's biggest gold buying nation.
"People will prefer to stay in cash than buy gold due to the drought," says Haresh Acharya, head of bullion desk at Parker Bullion in Ahmedabad.
"The market is slow, but there could be buying later this month," adds Ashok Jain at Mumbai gold wholesaler Chenaji Narsinghji.
"Gold is still looking promising in the second half [of 2012]," reckons Shanghai CIFCO Futures analyst Li Ning.
"The peak physical consumption season [is] on the horizon and more quantitative easing from the US Fed [is] still on the cards."
Here in London, the Bank of England published its quarterly Inflation Report Wednesday, cutting its forecast for UK economic growth to near zero for 2012.
"The underlying picture is that output has been at best broadly flat over the past two years, and has continually disappointed expectations of a recovery," said Bank governor Mervyn King.
"Many of the conditions necessary for a recovery are [however] in place, and the [Monetary Policy Committee] will continue to do all it can to bring about that recovery."
"Central banks," King added during his press conference, "have done a massive amount. This has been an extraordinary period of monetary stimulus never seen before and we've still got the foot to the floor."
"We expect the main message from the Inflation Report to be that more easing is coming," said Nomura economist Philip Rush, speaking ahead of the report's publication.
"This message would be communicated by forecasting inflation to be more likely than not to be well below target through the medium term."
In the event, King said that "inflation is likely to fall further from its current level to be around or a little below target for much of the forecast period".
The Sterling gold price fell slightly following the publication of the report, dropping below £1030 per ounce as the Pound rallied against the Dollar, though gold in Sterling remained above where it closed last week.
London-headquartered bank Standard Chartered meantime may need to pay up to $700 million as a result of allegations made by the New York State Department of Financial Services that it breached regulations by disguising transactions with Iran, newswire Bloomberg reports.
Standard Chartered has rejected the allegations and says it intends to contest them.
"Political intervention may be needed over this," says one senior City of London figure quoted by the Financial Times.
"This is an attack," said another.
"If we don't stand up to it, it could be catastrophic for London's financial standing. There has to be some stage where [the British government] says something in defense of the banks."
Ben Traynor
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Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK's longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics.
(c) BullionVault 2011
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