Gold futures fell Tuesday in thinly-traded pre-holiday sessions, pacing losses in crude-oil futures as a strengthening dollar reduced the metal's appeal as an investment alternative. Gold for February delivery, the most active contract, ended down $9.10, or 1.1%, at $838.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded in a range between $829.80 and $849.80. "Market players geared up for an early departure from work tomorrow," said Jon Nadler, senior analyst at Kitco Bullion Dealers. "Interest in trying to squeeze one more profitable day from an otherwise dismal year ebbed some more." "Year-end book-squaring may offer only a narrow platform for significant price swings," he added. The nearby December contract, which expires Dec. 29, also moved lower Tuesday to end at $837.20. Open interest, or the number of outstanding contracts for December delivery, stood at 413 as of Tuesday, or 41,300 ounces, according to Comex data. Gold inventories held by Comex for futures delivery stood at 2,832,983 ounces as of Monday, unchanged from a day ago, according to the latest data from the exchange. Falling crude Adding downward pressures on gold, crude oil dropped more than 4% to as low as $38.21 as gloomy economic news increased demand concerns. Weaker crude prices tend to reduce gold's appeal as a hedge against inflation. See Futures Movers. Also pushing gold lower was the greenback. The dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, reversed earlier losses and gained 0.2%. U.S. gross domestic product contracted at a rate in line with economists' expectations. Inflation-adjusted GDP for the third quarter fell at a 0.5% annualized rate, unrevised from the previous estimate, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It's the weakest quarterly performance for GDP since the first quarter of 2001. For the current quarter, economists are predicting a sharp decline -- in the neighborhood of 6% -- that would be the biggest drop since the early 1980s. See Economic Report. Meanwhile, the U.K. economy shrank more than expected in the third quarter as service industries took a severe hit. See full story. In gold spot trading, the London gold-fixing price -- a benchmark for gold traded directly between big institutions -- stood at $843.50 an ounce Tuesday afternoon, down $5.50 from Monday afternoon. In other metals trading, March silver futures fell 5.5% to $10.26 an ounce. January platinum slid 1.2% to $846.50 an ounce, and March palladium rose slightly to $174.70 an ounce. March copper fell 4.8% to $1.281 a pound. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded gold fund, stood at 775.33 tons Monday, unchanged from a day ago and up 20 tons from a month ago, according to the latest data from the fund. The SPDR Gold Trustfell 1.8% to $82.01. The iShares Gold Trust exchange-traded fund slid 1.7% to $82.03, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF ) fell 6.2% to $10.07. The Amex Gold Bugs Index , which tracks the share prices of major gold companies, rose 0.5% to 269.74. The Market Vectors-Gold Miners ETF gained 0.3% to $29.93.

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