PRECIOUS-Gold pauses for breath as investors seek Fed guidance

By Ishaan Arora

Sept 15 (Reuters) - Gold was flat on Monday as investors refrained from placing big bets ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy meeting later this week, where the central bank is expected to cut interest rates and offer more insights on the pace of further easing.

Spot gold XAU= held its ground at $3,644.07 per ounce, as of 1036 GMT. Bullion climbed about 1.6% last week, reaching a record high of $3,673.95 on Tuesday.

U.S. gold futures GCcv1 for December delivery were down 0.1% at $3,681.0.

"It is widely expected that the Fed will deliver a 25-bp rate cut. However, doubts remain over the tone Jerome Powell will adopt in his remarks at the end of the meeting and the guidance he will provide for future policy decisions," said Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at ActivTrades.

Traders are pricing in a near-certain 25 basis point (bps) cut to the Fed's key interest rate at the conclusion of the two-day policy meeting on September 17, with a small chance of a 50 bps reduction, according to CME FedWatch tool.

Non-yielding bullion, often considered a safe-haven asset during broader uncertainty, tends to perform well in a low-interest-rate environment.

The Fed's meeting comes amid challenges, including a legal dispute over its leadership and U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to exert more control over the interest rate policy and the central bank's broader role.

For gold, "while we see the risks to our $4,000/toz mid-2026 forecast as skewed to the upside, rising speculative length raises the risk of tactical pullbacks, as positioning tends to mean-revert," Goldman Sachs said in a note on Friday.

Elsewhere, spot silver XAG= was up 0.1% at $42.19 per ounce, platinum XPT= gained 0.5% to $1,396.40 and palladium XPD= rose 0.8% to $1,206.66.

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