BENGALURU, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Gold prices edged higher on Friday to a one-week high as the dollar weakened on receding fears of a full-blown Sino-U.S. trade war, with the yellow metal heading for its first weekly gain in four.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold XAU= inched up 0.2 percent to $1,209.38 by 0036 GMT, after touching its highest since Sept. 13 at $1,210.01. It has risen 1.3 percent so far this week.
* U.S. gold futures were up 0.3 percent at $1,214.30 an ounce.
* Investors are awaiting next week's Federal Reserve meeting. The U.S. central bank is widely expected to raise benchmark interest rates and shed light on the path for future rate hikes.
* All 113 economists in the Reuters poll forecast the Fed would raise rates when it meets Sept. 25-26. It is expected to follow that up with one more before the end of this year, taking the fed funds rate to 2.25-2.50 percent. Higher rates dent demand for non-interest yielding gold and in turn boost the dollar in which it is priced.
* The dollar index .DXY was hovering near a ten-week low against a basket of major currencies.
* The dollar fell as a resurgence in global risk appetite curbed safe-haven demand for the greenback. USD/
* The U.S. economy will expand at a robust pace in coming quarters but slow to 2 percent by the end of 2019, according to forecasters polled by Reuters who unanimously said the escalating trade war with China was bad economic policy. Some Asian economies running large external surpluses, including Thailand and South Korea, might be forced to tighten monetary policy soon as high household debt poses a bigger financial risk than the U.S. Federal Reserve's steady pace of rate hikes. Palladium XPD= touched its highest since April 19 at $1,054 per ounce on Thursday. It was last down 0.2 percent at $1,047.49.
* Platinum XPT= hit its highest since Aug. 10 at $835.20 on Thursday. It was steady at $832.74 on Friday.
* Russia's gold reserves stood at 64.3 million troy ounces as of the start of September, the central bank said on Thursday. Switzerland's gold trade boomed in August, with imports hitting their highest level since January 2017 and exports the highest since June last year, data from the Swiss customs bureau showed. Fintech company Tradewind Markets said on Thursday it had hired Steve Lowe, former head of European operations at Bank of Nova Scotia's BNS.TO metals business, to help it expand in Europe.