PRECIOUS-Gold steady near 4-month high on safe-haven demand

Reuters

SINGAPORE, July 14 (Reuters) - Gold was steady near a four-month high on Monday, supported by safe-haven buying from escalating tensions in the Middle East and lingering worries about Portugal's biggest bank. FUNDAMENTALS * Spot gold was little changed at $1,338.20 an ounce by 0034 GMT. It posted its sixth straight weekly gain on Friday. * Last week, the metal had hit $1,345 - its highest since March, after worries about the financial stability of Portugal's Banco Espirito Santo hammered equities and stoked fears of a European crisis. * Elsewhere, Israel appeared to hold off on a threatened escalation of its week-old Gaza Strip barrage on Monday despite balking at Western calls for a ceasefire with an equally defiant Hamas. * On Sunday, the Israeli military had warned residents of the northern border town of Beit Lahiya to leave or risk their lives when, after nightfall, it planned to intensify air strikes against suspected Palestinian rocket sites among civilian homes. * Gold is seen as an alternative investment to riskier assets such as equities. * Hedge funds and money managers increased their bullish bets on gold and silver futures and options in the week to July 8, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday. * Markets were awaiting Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's congressional testimony this week for clues about the economy and the timing of the U.S. central bank's interest rate hike. * The gold mining industry is increasing its net hedged position for the first time since 2011 after a plunge in gold prices worried creditors, but a return to selling forward masses of bullion is a distant prospect. * CME Group and Thomson Reuters will operate an electronic silver benchmark when the 117-year-old "fix" is disbanded in August, in a move widely seen preceding sweeping reforms of precious metals price-setting. * For the top stories on metals and other news, click , or MARKET NEWS * Major global equities markets edged higher and the yen stabilized against the U.S. dollar on Friday. DATA/EVENTS (GMT) 0900 Euro zone Industrial production May PRICES AT 0034 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg Spot gold 1338.2 0.36 0.03 Spot silver 21.39 0 0 Spot platinum 1508.24 1.44 0.1 Spot palladium 871.75 2.05 0.24 Comex gold 1339.4 2 0.15 Comex silver 21.5 0.039 0.18 Euro 1.36 DXY 80.22 COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months (Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Joseph Radford)