LONDON, Dec 3: Gold eased on Wednesday as the dollar firmed against the euro, denting the metal’s appeal as a currency hedge, with traders awaiting a raft of key economic news due later this week.

A spate of interest rate decisions, including that of the European Central Bank on Thursday, are set to influence the currency markets, and key US non-farm payrolls numbers will be released on Friday.

Spot gold slipped to $773.05/775.05 an ounce at 1000 GMT from $781.50 an ounce in New York late on Tuesday.

This is a big week for news, and a lot of people will be on the sidelines ahead of that, Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS Finance, said. This is going to be a very illiquid market.

Gold is often bought as an alternative investment to the dollar and typically moves in the opposite direction to the US currency.

The dollar strengthened against the euro on Wednesday as traders bet on a euro zone rate cut.

The currency markets remain jittery ahead of rate announcements from the ECB, the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand on Thursday.

Gold shrugged off a move higher in oil prices, with inflation fears tempered by crude’s sharp dip at the beginning of this week. US crude futures are currently up on the day, but are trading some 13 per cent below the level they hit early on Monday.

Physical off take of gold is also slowing, traders said. In India, the world’s largest bullion market, domestic gold buying declined as well-stocked traders awaited further price falls.

We have many buy orders at $750 (an ounce) levels, a dealer at a Mumbai bank said. Among other precious metals, spot silver tracked gold lower to $9.38/9.46 an ounce from $9.54.

Platinum prices rose, recovering some of this week’s up to 10 per cent losses. The metal slipped sharply on fears over falling sales by automakers, the main consumers of platinum used to make autocatalysts.

Data released on Tuesday showed US car sales tumbled nearly 37 per cent in November, the 13th consecutive month of falls, to their lowest level since 1982.

The platinum group metals market has come to expect the worse, and much of this bearish news has been priced in already, Standard Bank analyst Walter de Wet said.

$796 late on Friday, while its sister metal palladium was little changed at $171/176 an ounce against $169.—Reuters