FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold was down 0.2% at $1,752.66 per ounce, as of 0016 GMT. U.S. gold futures fell 0.1% to $1,751.80.
* The dollar index was up 0.3%.
* Most market participants are pricing in a 50 basis-point interest rate increase at the Federal Reserve's December meeting after minutes of the U.S. central bank's last policy meeting signalled a slower pace of rate hikes.
* Lower interest rates make gold attractive in comparison to interest-yielding assets while weighing on the dollar.
* SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings rose 0.2% to 908.96 tonnes on Friday from 906.93 tonnes on Wednesday.
* Hundreds of demonstrators and police clashed in Shanghai on Sunday night as protests over China's stringent COVID restrictions flared for a third day and spread to several cities in the wake of a deadly fire in the country's far west.
* Ghana has ordered all large-scale mining companies to sell 20% of their entire stock of refined gold at their refineries to the Bank of Ghana from Jan. 1, 2023, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said on Facebook on Friday.
* Spot silver slipped 1.3% to $21.31, platinum fell 0.4% to $976.28 and palladium declined 0.6% to $1,840.97.
DATA/EVENTS (GMT)
0030 Australia Retail Sales MM Final Oct
0900 EU Money-M3 Annual Grwth Oct
1100 UK CBI Distributive Trades Nov
(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
