PRECIOUS-Gold drops, heads for sixth straight quarterly loss

* London market closed post-Christmas, liquidity thin
* Gold down nearly 10 pct in 2015
* GRAPHIC-2015 asset returns: http://link.reuters.com/dub25t
* Silver slips 3 pct, biggest decliner among main precious
metals

(Updates prices; adds comment, second byline, NEW YORK
dateline)
By Marcy Nicholson and Jan Harvey
NEW YORK/LONDON, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Gold fell on Monday in
line with a retreat in oil prices, giving up some of last week's
gains, but moves were range bound in thin liquidity in a
holiday-shortened week.
Gold rose nearly 1 percent during Christmas week, but
remains on track to fall for a sixth successive quarter, its
longest run of quarterly losses since the mid-1970s. It is down
nearly 10 percent this year.
Spot gold XAU= was down 0.85 percent at $1,066.35 an ounce
at 1:57 p.m. EST (1857 GMT), while U.S. gold futures GCv1 for
February delivery settled down $7.60 an ounce, or 0.7 percent,
at $1,068.30.
"It's the time of year when investors are looking at losses
in their portfolios to offset capital gains," said Dan Heckman,
national investment consultant for U.S. Bank Wealth Management
in Kansas City.
"Technically and fundamentally, gold's in a bad spot here
and we don't really see relief until we get somewhere into 2016.
We're seeing a lot of money being pulled out of commodity ETFs
and there's no buying interest."
Prices hit their lowest since early 2010 this month in
anticipation of the first U.S. interest rate rise in nearly a
decade. Though gold recovered lost ground in the wake of the
announcement as dealers holding short positions covered, it
remains under pressure, awaiting more clues on monetary policy.
"If you look at the last year's decline, that was due almost
exclusively to a much stronger dollar, and that was due to the
Fed being the only central body to raise rates with any
conviction," ING analyst Hamza Khan said.
"The question of whether gold is going to recover in 2016 or
not will depend not on whether the Fed hikes rates or not,
because that seems to be a given, but whether it is the only one
to hike rates."
Oil prices fell 3 percent after the long Christmas weekend,
pressuring global equities lower. Gold is positively correlated
to oil as the metal is seen as a hedge against petroleum-led
inflation. O/R MKTS/GLOB
Interest in gold was muted in the major bullion-buying
centers in Asia overnight, dealers said, though data showed
China's net gold imports from Hong Kong rose month/month in
November as prices fell to multi-year lows.
Silver XAG= posted the biggest declines of the main
precious metals, down 3.3 percent at $13.87 an ounce. Platinum
XPT= was down 0.9 percent at $873.25 an ounce, while palladium
XPD= was down 1.5 percent at $550 an ounce.