TOKYO (Reuters) - Gold was little changed on Monday, hovering around $933 an ounce as the dollar stayed within its recent range, with investors reluctant to chase the metal higher after it fell for three straight weeks.
In early June, a weakening dollar and increasing demand for gold-backed funds helped bullion hit a three-month high of $989.80 an ounce. But the dollar has since pared its losses, dulling some of gold's allure as an alternative investment.
Closely watched U.S. consumer and producer price data last week were also sharply lower than economists had forecast, and dampened gold's appeal as a hedge against inflation.
"We don't expect too much action in the market ... Spot traders have lost interest in this range-bound market," said Louis Lok, a dealer at Bank of China in Hong Kong, referring to the recent range of between $927 and $950.
"We need something exciting, or news, to make the market go live again," he said.
Spot gold was almost flat at $933.30 an ounce at 0425 GMT (12:25 a.m. EDT) from New York's notional close of $933.80 and above a Friday low of $930.45.
Bullion fell $4, or 0.4 percent, last week, marking the third straight week of losses.
The three-week decline, due partly to selling related to unwinding of long positions in U.S. gold futures, has worsened technical charts and discouraged fresh buying, traders said.
U.S. gold futures for August delivery edged lower to $933.90 per ounce, down 0.3 percent from Friday's settlement on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
A weekly report by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed noncommercial net long U.S. gold futures positions fell 7.5 percent to 175,543 lots in the week to June 16 from 189,674 lots.
The U.S. Federal Reserve holds a policy-setting meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday and the market is waiting to see what the central bank says about the economic outlook, traders said.
Investors are still trying to decide if earlier bets on riskier assets such as stocks have been overdone in light of the global economy's pace of recovery.
"People are disappointed that gold and the euro have failed to break decisively above resistance (against the dollar) at $945 for gold and $1.40 for the euro," said Kaname Gokon, deputy general manager at Okato Shoji Co's research section.
"Gold so far is managing to hover slightly below $933.50, but if this mood continues, people may test gold's downside toward $910," he said.
The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust, said its holdings stood at 1,132.15 tonnes as of June 19, unchanged since June 5.
