BENGALURU, June 13 (Reuters) - Gold hit a near four week
high early Monday, supported by weaker Asian stocks as investors
turned towards safe haven-assets ahead of this week's central
bank meetings and Britain's June 23 referendum on its European
Union membership.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold XAU= was nearly flat at $1,273.36 an ounce by
0105 GMT. Bullion touched a session best of $1,278.03, its
highest since May 18.
* U.S. gold GCcv1 was up 0.1 percent at $1,276.50
* Often perceived as an insurance against economic and
financial concerns, gold has risen 5 percent in June and 20
percent in 2016 so far.
* Asian shares and sterling skidded in early trade on Monday
and the perceived safe-haven yen rose. MKTS/GLOB
* The safe-haven yen surged to its highest level in three
years against both sterling and the euro. The dollar lost 0.4
percent to 106.60 yen JPY= , edging near one-month low of
106.26 touched last Thursday. USD/
* The U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Swiss National
Bank and the Bank of Japan will all meet this week. All are
expected to hold monetary policy steady against a backdrop of
caution about the global economic outlook as well as the impact
about a possible "Brexit."
* The Bank of Japan may have run into an unexpected obstacle
as it considers expanding its extraordinary stimulus programme
as soon as next week -- the wrath of the country's powerful but
typically compliant banks over pushing interest rates deeper
into negative territory.
* Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust GLD , the world's largest
gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.74 percent to 893.92
tonnes on Friday, the highest since October 2013. GOL/ETF
* Hedge funds and money managers raised their net long
position in COMEX gold contracts in the week to June 7, and cut
their bullish stance in silver, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission data showed on Friday.
* Gold discounts in India expanded to their widest in nearly
3-1/2 months this week amid lacklustre demand elsewhere in Asia,
with bullion's recent rally dampening retail demand.
* For the top stories on metals and other news, click
TOP/MTL or GOL
MARKET REPORT
* Oil prices settled down 3 percent on Friday after data
showing the U.S. oil drilling rig count rising for a second week
in row and a stronger dollar weighed on demand for
greenback-denominated crude futures. O/R
DATA AHEAD (GMT)
0200 China industrial output May
0200 China retail sales May
0200 China urban investment May