>Asia spot gold up with base metals

Sydney - Spot gold prices rose in Asia Thursday, boosted by strong gains in base metals, as London Metal Exchange copper prices rose by 2.6%.

To make more headway and to break resistance in the $960 a troy ounce area, gold would need further dollar weakness, market watchers said.

"The inverse relationship with the dollar is quite strong at the moment, so that's the main driver," said Adrian Koh, analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.

At 0626 GMT, spot gold traded at $952.20/oz, up $5.00 on the New York close, and the euro stood at $1.4261, up from a low of $1.42 earlier in the day.

While gold was up, prices are still essentially rangebound at $930-$960/oz, said Charles Dowsett, head of precious metal trading at RBS.

LME metals were strong across the board, and LME copper hit a new 10-month high of $6,350 a metric ton, up 2.6% compared with the previous afternoon kerb.

Base metals accelerated during the day following the end of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The Fed said it saw signs of the U.S. economy leveling out, providing a boost to commodities.

Spot platinum benefited more strongly from the rise in industrial metals' prices given their primary use in autocatalytic converters.

Platinum traded to an intraday high of $1,257/oz, up $18.

Markets reacted calmly to the Fed's decision to let its Treasury purchase program expire once it runs through the $300 billion it pledged to help keep consumer borrowing rates low.

At 0645 GMT, spot silver traded at $14.65/oz, up 22 cents. Platinum was up $13.50 at $1,252.50/oz and palladium was $1.00 lower at $270.00/oz.

On Tocom, benchmark June 2010 gold futures settled up Y45 at Y2,955 a gram; platinum futures were also higher, up Y106 at Y3,887/gram.

Source: COMMODITIESCONTROL