By Feiwen Rong and Glenys Sim Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Gold rose in Asia, erasing earlier losses, as equities pared losses and the dollar's rally against the euro stalled ahead of reports that may show U.S. consumer confidence dropped. Bullion climbed as the dollar fell against the euro after soaring to a two-year high against the European currency yesterday. The New York-based Conference Board's index of consumer confidence slid to 52 in October, one point shy of the 16-year low reached in June, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Asian equities advanced, snapping four days of declines. ``Gold now looks as cheap as it has been for a long time, and there's no reason why this short-term strength in the U.S. dollar will be sustained,'' Greg Canavan, analyst at Fat Prophets Management Ltd., said today from Sydney. ``We believe the U.S. dollar rally will soon begin to fade, providing a boost to the gold price into the end of the year.'' Bullion for immediate delivery traded 3.1 percent higher at $753.16 an ounce at 3:42 p.m. in Singapore after earlier trading as low as $725.29. Silver for immediate delivery jumped 2.5 percent to $9.29 an ounce. The dollar slipped to $1.2584 against the euro from $1.2493 late yesterday. Gold often moves in an opposite direction to the dollar as it is seen as an alternative investment to a declining U.S. currency. `Downside Limited' A rally in base metals yesterday and some physical buying interest from Asia has limited the ``downside'' in gold, Wallace Ng, precious metals trader at Fortis Bank in Asia Pacific, said today by phone from Hong Kong. ``Physical demand in some Asian countries such as Vietnam is still quite good, as investors think the banking system is not safe,'' he added. December-delivery gold gained 1.4 percent to $752.90 an ounce in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold for December delivery in Shanghai rose 4.7 percent to 163.98 yuan a gram ($745 an ounce). Gold for August delivery jumped 7.1 percent to 2,171 yen a gram ($736 an ounce) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 3:47 p.m. local time. To contact the reporters on this story: Feiwen Rong in Singapore at frong2@bloomberg.net; Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net

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