An Update from Reuters

"Investment interest in gold is rather low. Everything we've seen has been more short-covering than anything else.", Credit Suisse analyst Tobias Merath said. "People are also not properly incentivized to return to gold with long term buying intentions."

As a gauge of investor interest, holdings of the world's largest gold backed exchange traded fund held near 4 ½ year lows on Monday, having posted a seventh consecutive weekly outflow last week.

On Friday gold rallied as investors holding short positions, or bearish bets, closed out those contracts by buying futures, analysts said.

Gold importers in India, the world's biggest physical buyer of the metal, struggled to get supplies on Monday, paying record premiums just ahead of the peak festival season next month.

Indian seller have struggled to source supplies for domestic use for almost three months, since the central bank introduced a rule that required 20 percent of al imports be re-exported.

Demand tends to peak around the five-day Diwali festival of lights, which this year fall sin the first week of November.