* Gold on track to end six-month losing streak
* Shares bounce, dollar hits 16-month high
* Silver falls to lowest since Oct. 11 (Updates prices)By Swati VermaBENGALURU, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Gold slid to its lowest innearly three weeks on Wednesday asthe dollar jumped and stockmarkets regained momentum after a spate of heavy losses, but themetal remained on track for its biggest monthly gain sinceJanuary.Gold is set to end a six-month run of losses in October, thelongest such streak since a period from August 1996 to January1997, as it heads for a more than 2 percent gain this month onintense stock market volatility.
Spot gold was down 0.5 percent at $1,215.96 an ounceat 1306 GMT, having touched its lowest since Oct. 11 at$1,214.07. U.S. gold futures fell 0.6 percent to$1,217.50.Analysts said they saw a stronger dollar ahead and predictedgold could struggle to continue its October rally."The dollar index looks like it's going higher and there isuncertainty related to the mid-term elections next week," saidAlasdair Macleod, head of research at GoldMoney.com. "If thereare signs that the Republicans are going to do well, this willprobably lead to yet more dollar strength."The mid-term elections on Nov. 6 will determine whether theRepublican or Democratic party controls the U.S. Congress.The dollar index climbed to a 16-month high while theyuan fell to its weakest level against the dollar since May 2008."The dollar versus the emerging market currencies,especially the Chinese yuan, is something the market is lookingat. The depreciating yuan is the key reason why gold has beenweak," said Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke."Gold benefited quite a lot from the equity market jitterswe had in the past week or so. Now the equity markets arecalming a bit and trying to build a bottom at these lows, whichis also negative for gold."European shares were helped by positive momentum in globalstock markets, bringing some relief after a brutal October inwhich equities suffered one of their worst drops in a decade andspooked investor confidence. Gold has fallen by about 11 percent since April, hit byrising U.S. interest rates and a global trade war that threatenseconomic growth, prompting investors to rush to the safety ofthe dollar."As long as inflation doesn't become a real threat orequities plunge much further from current levels, many investorswill prefer yielding instruments than investing in gold, andthat's what the dollar is providing," said Hussein Sayed, ChiefMarket Strategist at FXTM."Gold is likely to trade within a narrow range of $1,200 to
$1,250 until new factors emerge ... It needs a bigger trigger tosee another rally similar to the one since the beginning of themonth."In other precious metals, silver fell 1.3 percent to$14.26 an ounce, having slipped as low as $14.22, its weakestsince Oct. 11.Platinum was down 0.1 percent at $832 while
palladium jumped 1.1 percent to $1,084.90. (Reporting by Swati Verma and Vijaykumar Vedala in BengaluruEditing by Alexandra Hudson and David Goodman)