Gold eased on Tuesday in thin trading, weighed down by a recovery in the dollar but just off a two-month high touched last week. Trading activity is expected to pick up later when the London and New York markets reopen after a holiday on Monday. Spot gold eased 0.3 percent to $954.70 per ounce from Monday's notional close of $957.80. Bullion is little changed from around $954.85 in late Asian trade on Monday and just a whisker off the two-month high above $960 touched last week. U.S. gold futures for June delivery fell 0.4 percent to $955.20 per ounce from Friday's settlement of $958.90 on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Yesterday the markets were closed in London, and in New York as well. So, some physical selling is back in the market," said Dick Poon, manager of precious metals at Heraeus in Hong Kong. Gold markets showed little response to a report on Tuesday that North Korea would launch more short-range missiles. The North, condemned by the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear test the previous day, fired off three short-range missiles from its east coast missile bases on Monday. [ID:nSEO205060] Analysts said any impact on gold from geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula would be short-lived as the nuclear test was not totally unexpected and the Security Council had decided to start work immediately on a new resolution. "This is not the first time (North Korea has driven up tension in the region), so I don't think it's a problem," Heraeus' Poon said. Analysts said the markets were focused on the direction of the dollar, which edged up but hovered near a five-month low against a basket of currencies <.DXY> marked last week. [USD/] Gold is often considered an alternative investment to the dollar. Currency traders are awaiting U.S. Treasury auctions this week to test the strength of investor appetite for dollar assets. The U.S. Treasury will sell two-year notes on Tuesday, with a series of auctions this week totalling $101 billion. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust , said its holdings stayed at 1,118.76 tonnes as of May 25, when the U.S. markets were closed, unchanged from May 22. [GOL/SPDR] Precious metals prices at 0309 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover Spot Gold 954.65 -3.15 -0.33 14.65 Spot Silver 14.59 -0.12 -0.82 -1.22 Spot Platinum 1141.50 -8.00 -0.70 -24.90 Spot Palladium 231.00 -0.50 -0.22 -37.23 TOCOM Gold 2921.00 -12.00 -0.41 -4.54 16848 TOCOM Platinum 3507.00 -38.00 -1.07 -34.31 5195 TOCOM Silver 444.00 -1.50 -0.34 -17.93 154 TOCOM Palladium 725.00 6.00 +0.83 -46.34 105 Euro/Dollar 1.3982 Dollar/Yen 94.71 TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.

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