FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold was up 0.3% at $2,350.59 an ounce at 0056 GMT. Bullion hit an all-time high of 2,431.29 on Friday.
* US gold futures fell 0.3% to $2,366.40 an ounce.
* The first direct attack on Israel by Iran, its archenemy, has shaken Israelis and left them fearing that a more serious war is imminent.
* Recent US economic data on the labor market and inflation have caused the market to lower market expectations for a Fed rate cut. * Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said the high consumer price index numbers were concerning, but he remains focused on how the targeted spending consumer price index is performing Fed personnel. * Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins is considering some interest rate cuts this year, knowing it will still take some time to bring inflation back to target levels.
* Higher interest rates reduce the attractiveness of holding gold without yield.
* Inflation in the euro zone is different from that in the United States, as ECB President Christine Lagarde insists, but the bloc will still face the same headwinds as others, limiting the slowdown in growth prices.
* Goldman Sachs raised its gold price forecast for the end of the year to $2,700 an ounce from $2,300, saying the metal’s bull market is not driven by macroeconomic factors usual.
* Spot silver rose 0.4% to $27.98 an ounce, platinum fell 0.1% to $973.05 and palladium lost 1% to $1,038.99.
