By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures were little changed Tuesday, trading above $830 an ounce ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision. Gold for February delivery, the most active contract, was last down $2.70, or 0.3%, at $833.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose to $840.10 earlier. The nearby December contract, which expires on Dec. 29, also moved slightly lower. Open interest, or the number of outstanding contracts of the December contract, stood at 815 as of Monday, or 81,500 ounces, according to Comex data. "Markets went into a holding pattern as the Fed prepared to announce its interest rate decision later today," said Jon Nadler, senior analyst at Kitco Bullion Dealers. The Fed's Federal Open Market Committee is expected to cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to 0.5% at a meeting ending Tuesday afternoon. The U.S. dollar has been losing ground against its major rivals on expectation of the rate cut, boosting dollar-denominated gold prices. The precious metal gained 9% last week, the biggest weekly advance in nearly three months. On Monday, it rallied 2% to close at $836.50, the highest level in two months. Still, gold is about 17% lower than its record high above $1,000 an ounce hit in March. In gold spot trading, the London afternoon gold-fixing price -- a benchmark for gold traded directly between big institutions -- stood at $833.50 an ounce Tuesday morning, up $7.50 from Monday afternoon. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest gold exchange-traded fund, stood at 765.23 tons on Monday, up 3.06 tons from a day ago, according to the latest data from the fund. In other metals, March silver futures fell 0.7% to $10.55 an ounce. January platinum lost 0.4% to $835.50 an ounce and March palladium fell 1.4% to $175 an ounce. March copper rose 1.1% to $1.42 a pound.

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