PRECIOUS-Gold holds near six-year peak as trade tensions simmer

* Global equities extend losses
* Dollar touches two-week low
* Trade truce unlikely before 2020 U.S. election: Goldman
* GRAPHIC-World FX rates in 2019: http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh

(Updates prices)
By K. Sathya Narayanan
Aug 6 (Reuters) - Gold steadied on Tuesday after touching a
six-year high as simmering tensions between Washington and
Beijing propelled investors towards safe-haven assets.
Spot gold XAU= was little changed at $1,464.15 an ounce as
of 1139 GMT after hitting its highest since May 2013 at
$1,474.81. Prices had jumped as much as 2% in the previous
session.
U.S. gold futures GCcv1 were also steady at $1,476.10.
"It all comes down to the U.S.-China situation and how it
will pan out. For now, investors are repricing their
expectations for when resolution is going to be achieved and
many are not expecting it to happen any time soon," said SP
Angel analyst Sergey Raevskiy.
"People are just rebalancing their portfolios in favour of
bonds, gold, Japanese yen, Swiss francs and usual safe havens."
Global equities, meanwhile, continued their sell-off as
Washington accused Beijing of currency manipulation after China
let the yuan drop to its lowest in more than a decade.
MKTS/GLOB
The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday said that Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin "will engage with the International
Monetary Fund to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage
created by China's latest actions". Meanwhile, Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs GS.N said it no
longer expects the United States and China to agree on a truce
to end their trade dispute before the 2020 U.S. Presidential
election, citing "a harder line" taken by policymakers from the
world's largest economies. The bank's chief economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote that he
expects the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates twice
more this year.
Lower interest rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding
non-yielding bullion.
ActivTrades analyst Carlo Alberto De Casa said the gold
rally is "just the obvious consequence" of investors expecting
at least another two rate cuts by the end of the year.
Interest rates futures FEDWATCH implied that traders see a
66% chance of the Fed cutting interest rates to at least 1.75%
to 2% in September.
The dollar .DXY was also supporting bullion, slipping to a
two-week low, while U.S. longer-dated Treasury yields registered
their biggest fall in 14 months. USD/ US/
Holdings of the largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund
(ETF), SPDR Gold Trust GLD , rose 0.5% on Monday. GOL/ETF
Among other precious metals, silver XAG= inched down 0.1%
to $16.37 an ounce, platinum XPT= was up 0.2% at $854.97 and
palladium XPD= rose 1.3% to $1,433.22.