PRECIOUS-Gold inches down on heightened Spain worries

SINGAPORE, July 23 (Reuters) - Gold edged lower on Monday
under the pressure of a stronger dollar, as investors fretted
about Spain's finance after its Valencia region said it might
need help from Madrid.

FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold edged down 0.2 percent to $1,580.84 an
ounce by 0032 GMT, after posting a 0.3-percent loss last week.
* U.S. gold futures contract for August delivery
inched down 0.1 percent to $1,580.70.
* Spain's heavily indebted eastern region of Valencia said
on Friday it would need financial help from Madrid, spooking
financial markets and complicating central government efforts to
stave off a full-blown sovereign bailout.
* The European Central Bank turned up the heat on Greece on
Friday ahead of a review of its bailout programme, saying it
would stop accepting Greek bonds and other collateral used by
Greek banks to tap ECB funding, at least until after the
review.
* The dollar index rose to a one-week high, while the
euro hit a fresh two-year trough against the greenback.
* Hedge funds and money managers sharply cut their net short
position in U.S. copper futures and options in the week to July
17, as investors covered their short positions on uncertainty
over additional monetary easing by the Federal Reserve.

* Russia's central bank raised its gold holdings by around
200,000 ounces, or 6.2 tonnes, in June, taking its total
holdings to 29.5 million ounces, the bank said on Friday.

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MARKET NEWS
* The euro fell to a near 12-year trough on the yen and
plumbed record lows versus its Australian counterpart on Monday,
starting the new week under pressure on persistent fears that
Spain will eventually need a full sovereign bailout.
* U.S. stocks broke a three-day winning streak on Friday as
Europe's debt crisis engulfed markets with renewed fears that
Spain may be unable to dodge a costly bailout.

DATA/EVENTS
1230 US Chicago Fed Nat'l Activity Index June
1400 EZ Consumer confidence July

PRICES

Precious metals prices 0032 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume
Spot Gold 1580.84 -3.30 -0.21 1.09
Spot Silver 27.20 -0.09 -0.33 -1.77
Spot Platinum 1400.25 -10.20 -0.72 0.52
Spot Palladium 573.75 2.72 +0.48 -12.07
COMEX GOLD AUG2 1580.70 -2.10 -0.13 0.89 2130
COMEX SILVER SEP2 27.18 -0.12 -0.45 -2.63 584
Euro/Dollar 1.2127
Dollar/Yen 78.42
COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Ed Davies)