PRECIOUS-Gold slips from 5-month high as dollar, shares climb on ECB move
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* Euro-priced gold holding near 21-month high
* Greek elections, FOMC meeting in focus (Updates throughout, changes dateline from SINGAPORE)
By Clara Denina
LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Gold fell on Friday, pulling back from a five-month high, as the euro hit an 11-year low against the dollar and shares rose after the European Central Bank announced a multi-billion euro bond-buying programme to revive the sagging euro zone economy.
The metal, often seen as a hedge against inflation, jumped more than one percent above $1,300 an ounce on Thursday after the ECB pledged to spend more than 1 trillion euros to boost growth and ward off deflation.
But prices have since pared some of those gains as the impact of a stronger dollar that makes dollar-denominated assets more expensive for foreign investors prevailed.
"Gold was completely dislocated from the dollar yesterday, meaning that euro-gold is the best performing commodity this year, helping dollar gold stay fairly stable around $1,300," Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen said.
"But that strength in the dollar is now proving too much."
Spot gold was down 0.5 percent at $1,294.70 an ounce by 1101 GMT. Bullion peaked at $1,306.20 on Thursday, its highest since Aug. 15, and was still headed for a third straight weekly gain.
U.S. gold futures were up $6.80 at $1,293.90 an ounce.
The dollar rose up to 0.9 percent against a basket of currencies, mostly due to euro weakness, while European shares had their biggest two-week rally in five years.
Euro-priced gold hit its highest since April 2013 at 1,153.13 euros an ounce.
Spot gold is up almost 10 percent since the beginning of the year as political uncertainties in the euro zone and worries about global economic growth lifted investment demand.
Traders were now likely to turn their attention to Sunday's election in Greece and next week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) two-day policy meeting for clues about the wider macro economic environment and the timing of an interest rate hike in the United States.
The Fed is expected to repeat that global risks have yet to throw the U.S. recovery or its rate hike plans off track despite the growing number of central banks cutting rates and ramping up stimulus.
Still, concerns over the global economy and positive chart patterns should support gold in the short term, with $1,320 and $1,350 "achievable upside targets", said INTL FCStone in a note.
Among other precious metals, spot silver was down 0.6 percent at $18.17 an ounce. Palladium lost 0.4 percent at $769.00 an ounce, while platinum fell 0.8 percent to $1,267.10 an ounce.
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