Gold was steady below $930 on Tuesday after finding a floor around $920 on buybacks from recent sellers, but activity was slow as investors focused on how much further the stock market would fall. Risk-averse investors had rushed to buy bullion over the past few weeks, pushing it above the psychologically important $1,000 level on Feb. 20., but heavy losses in equity markets on concerns over the global financial sector on Monday triggered a wave of selling to cash in the alternative asset. Spot gold was trading at $924.00 per ounce at 0427 GMT, down 0.2 percent from New York's notional close of $925.35 on Monday. It earlier fell as low as $921.00, an almost three-week low and down more than 8 percent from an 11-month high of $1,005.40 marked on Feb. 20. "The market is being propped up by a reversal of recent short positions. Key players are those who are based in Tokyo," said Kaname Gokon, deputy general manager at Okato Shoji Co's research section. "They won't bother selling further unless stocks are hit hard again," he said. There is anticipation that the downside could be limited by physical buy orders lined up at $900-$920 per ounce, he added. U.S. stocks slid more than 4 percent to 12-year lows on Monday as embattled insurer AIG posted a record $61.7 billion loss, the biggest in U.S. corporate history, and received another government bailout. [.N] Japan's Nikkei share average <.N225> followed Wall Street lower and touched a four-month low on Tuesday, though it pared losses later, with banks slipping on worries about the U.S. financial system. [.T] While more sell-offs in stocks could send gold to or below $900 per ounce, waning demand from bullion-backed exchange-traded funds is another factor casting a shadow over the gold market, analysts said. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust , said holdings remained at a record 1,029.29 tonnes on March 2, unchanged from Feb. 26 when it first hit that level. [GOL/SPDR] Precious metals prices at 0429 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover Spot Gold 922.90 -2.45 -0.26 45.18 Spot Silver 12.81 -0.10 -0.77 -0.31 Spot Platinum 1051.00 -3.00 -0.28 -7.16 Spot Palladium 191.00 0.50 +0.26 -42.47 TOCOM Gold 2903.00 -111.00 -3.68 18.73 45083 TOCOM Platinum 3295.00 -131.00 -3.82 -22.54 9637 TOCOM Silver 397.70 -16.10 -3.89 -19.38 338 TOCOM Palladium 605.00 -11.00 -1.79 -51.79 276 Euro/Dollar 1.2618 Dollar/Yen 97.47 TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce. (Additional reporting by Chikako Mogi; Editing by Ben Tan)

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