Gold prices gain in Asia as investors look for fresh cues on demand

              Gold prices gained slightly in Asia on Wednesday as investors looked for fresh demand cues following U.S. data overnight that pointed to steady prices.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, goldfutures for August delivery traded at $1,307.70 a troy ounce, up 0.11%, after hitting an overnight session low of $1,302.60 and off a high of $1,315.80.

Overnight, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. consumer price index rose 2.1% in June, unchanged from the previous month and in line with forecasts, which strengthened the dollar and weakened gold, as the two assets tend to trade inversely with one another.

On a month-over-month basis, U.S. consumer prices were up 0.3% after a 0.4% increase in May, also in line with expectations.

The data kept expectations firm that the days of loose monetary policies that have supported gold since the Great Recession in the U.S. are coming to an end.

Market talk points to the Fed ending its bond-buying program around October and then raising interest rates some time in 2015, though the length of time that will pass between those two policy moves remains up in the air.

June's core inflation rate, which excludes food and energy costs, rose by just 0.1% from May and 1.9% on year, slightly below market calls for 0.2% and 2.0% readings, respectively, which illustrated how gasoline was driving the CPI up, though markets viewed the numbers as fundamentally healthy anyway.

Elsewhere, the National Association of Realtors reported earlier that existing U.S. home sales rose 2.6% to 5.04 million units in June from 4.91 million in May, beating market forecasts for a 2.0% rise to 4.97 million units.

Silver for September delivery was down 0.01% at $21.005 a troy ounce. Copper futures for September delivery fell 0.05% at $3.203 a pound.