Gold hovers around $1,650; dollar, oil weigh

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FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold was little changed at $1,650.90 an ounce by 8.28 p.m. EDT.

* U.S. gold edged up 0.2 percent to $1,651.

* Fear of a potential slowdown in China helped boost the greenback the session before, sending gold lower, while falling oil prices and more data showing the U.S. economy is on its way to recovery also tarnished the appeal of bullion.

* Permits for U.S. homebuilding neared a 3-1/2 year high in February, suggesting a budding recovery in the housing market was still on track even though groundbreaking activity slipped.

* U.S.

"gold edged up 0.2 percent to $1,651.* Fear of a potential slowdown in China helped boost the greenback the session before, sending gold lower, while falling oil prices and more data showing the U.S"Treasury debt prices posted modest gains on Tuesday, though selling still pushed some yields to multi-month highs as traders focused on the idea that a stronger economy could mean quicker inflation and monetary policy tightening sooner than expected.

* U.S. crude oil futures edged higher on Wednesday after dropping more than 2 percent in the previous session on news that Saudi Arabia plans to pump more oil to meet any supply shortage caused by the Iran crisis. <O/N>

* SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings had slipped 0.23 percent to 1,290.247 tonnes by March 20, the first drop after staying unchanged for four straight sessions.

* For the top stories on metals and other news, click <TOP/MTL>, <TOP/MACRO> or <GOL/>

MARKET NEWS

* The U.S. dollar started with a spring in its step on Wednesday as renewed worries about Chinese growth saw investors dump commodity currencies including the Australian dollar. <USD/>

* A warning about China's growth sparked selling in energy and industrial shares on Tuesday, but the broad market's losses were contained, a sign of resilience in U.S.

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DATA/EVENTS 1130 India M3 Money Supply 1400 U.S. Exist. home sales % chg Feb 1400 U.S. Existing home sales Feb 2330 Japan Reuters Tankan DI Mar 2012 2350 Japan Exports yy Feb 2012

PRICES

Precious metals prices 8.28 p.m.

EDT

Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume

Spot Gold 1650.90 0.87 +0.05 5.57

Spot Silver 32.10 -0.01 -0.03 15.93

Spot Platinum 1655.95 7.92 +0.48 18.88

Spot Palladium 692.17 3.12 +0.45 6.08

COMEX GOLD APR2 1651.00 4.00 +0.24 5.37 4737

COMEX SILVER MAY2 32.12 0.28 +0.88 15.05 671

Euro/Dollar 1.3250

Dollar/Yen 83.60

COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Joseph Radford)