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Gold Rises From One-Month Low as Dollar Weakens Before Speech

By Feiwen Rong

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Gold rose from its lowest level in about a month as a weakening dollar boosted the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative asset.

The dollar fell toward the lowest in a week against the yen and slid for the first time in four days versus the euro on concern U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will forecast a prolonged downturn for the world"s largest economy when he speaks today.

The bullion was lifted because of ``some weakening in the U.S. dollar this morning,"" Darren Heathcote, head of trading at Investec Bank Ltd., said by phone from Sydney. ``The U.S. had some particularly bad news coming out on Friday"" which indicated the country may be headed for a recession.

Bullion for immediate delivery advanced as much 2.2 percent to $800.23 an ounce and traded at $796.58 at 9:18 a.m. in Singapore. It slumped to $773.72 an ounce on Oct. 17, the lowest since Sept. 17. Silver for immediate delivery jumped 3.6 percent to $9.71 an ounce.

``There"s still some upward pressure on gold as a result of its potential as a relatively safe-haven investment,"" Heathcote said.

Bernanke will testify at the House Budget Committee on the economic outlook and financial markets at 10 a.m. in Washington. Single-family home building sank to the slowest pace in 26 years in the U.S. in September, the Commerce Department said Oct. 17.

Long Positions

Still, recent data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed that hedge-fund managers and other large speculators cut their net-long positions in New York gold futures in the week ended Oct. 14.

Some of the reduction ``might be coupled with the need to pay margin calls amid the uproar in the financial markets,"" Heathcote said. ``Some investors may start to think gold"s not as safe as they expected because of the wild swings in prices"" recently, he also said.

Speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 106,825 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Net-long positions fell by 4,788 contracts, or 4 percent, from a week earlier.

December-delivery gold gained 1.4 percent to $798.30 an ounce in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold for August delivery was little changed at 2,600 yen a gram ($795 an ounce) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 10:25 a.m. local time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Feiwen Rong in Singapore at frong2@bloomberg.net