By Rujun Shen
SINGAPORE, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Gold edged lower on Thursday under the weight of a stronger dollar, although overall concerns about global growth and the euro zone's ability to solve its debt crisis may lend some support.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold lost 0.2 percent to $1,785.39 an ounce by
0031 GMT. U.S. gold
* Rising U.S. wholesale prices outside of food and fuel helped gold stage a third consecutive session of gains on Wednesday when prices rose tantalisingly close to $1,800.
* Gold-backed exchange-traded funds continued to draw investors. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust , the world's largest gold ETF, rose by 0.72 percent on the day to 1,271.985 tonnes by Aug. 17.
* Spot silver lost 0.2 percent to $40.10 an ounce, after closing above $40 for the first time in two weeks in the previous session.
* Holdings in the iShares Silver Trust , the world's largest silver ETF, edged higher to 9,727.10 tonnes by Aug. 17, the trust said.
* The Bank of England inched closer on Wednesday to launching a second round of quantitative easing, after two policymakers unexpectedly dropped their calls for higher interest rates against a backdrop of rising unemployment.
* Venezuela will nationalise its gold industry and is moving its international reserves out of Western countries, President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday in a combative step ahead of his re-election bid next year.
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MARKET NEWS
* Tech shares fell on Wednesday after Dell's disappointing sales outlook fanned worries weak economic growth will hurt earnings in the third quarter.
* The dollar index gained 0.3 percent on Thursday, and regained most of the lost ground against the Swiss franc in the previous session.
DATA/EVENTS 1230 U.S. Initial jobless claims Jul 30 1230 U.S. Consumer Prices Jul 2011 1400 U.S. Existing Home Sales Jul 2011 1400 U.S. Leading Indicators Jul 2011
PRICES Precious metals prices 0031 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume Spot Gold 1785.39 -2.76 -0.15 25.78 Spot Silver 40.10 -0.08 -0.20 29.94 Spot Platinum 1835.49 -0.11 -0.01 3.85 Spot Palladium 770.49 0.26 +0.03 -3.63 TOCOM Gold 4405.00 -10.00 -0.23 18.13 29166 TOCOM Platinum 4562.00 37.00 +0.82 -2.85 4483 TOCOM Silver 98.50 0.10 +0.10 21.60 195 TOCOM Palladium 1922.00 52.00 +2.78 -8.35 252 COMEX GOLD DEC1 1788.80 -5.00 -0.28 25.85 1811 COMEX SILVER SEP1 40.13 -0.22 -0.55 29.70 3980 Euro/Dollar 1.4414 Dollar/Yen 76.63 TOCOM prices in yen per gram. Spot prices in $ per ounce. COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months (Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Michael Urquhart)