Gold for August delivery finished the day at $897 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $5.50. It fell to a low of $890 earlier in the session.
The contract closed out last week with a loss of 4.2%. It ended last month 2.5% higher.
"The two main drivers of the gold price, at the moment, remain oil and the U.S. dollar,"' said Peter Spina, an analyst at GoldSeek.com, in a report to clients sent Monday.
"The oil price has pulled back from above $130 and the U.S. dollar has recovered just over 1% [vs. the euro]," he said. "But these moves are not sufficient to cause major moves in gold, so the churning will continue until there is good cause to move strongly, one way or the other."
Gold prices are "currently dependent on investment demand to make it run up this season and that demand is presently quiet," he said.
A boost for gold
Jon Nadler, a senior analyst at Kitco Bullion Dealers, said "gold found some old friends in Asia over the weekend -- buying of the metal by jewelry fabricators became noticeable, finally."
Meanwhile, "while the economic calendar is not exactly lacking data flows for the first half of the week, the more significant and potentially dollar-moving figures will come Thursday and Friday," he said in emailed commentary.
On Monday, the dollar got a lift after U.S. manufacturing data were better than expected. The Institute for Supply Management's index for May improved to 49.6% from 48.6% in April, and came in above the 48.7% consensus expectation.
But the dollar weakened on the heels of a decline in the broader U.S. stock market and stronger oil prices. Stocks slumped Monday for the first time in five sessions. Crude-oil futures climbed as concerns over slowing demand eased.
Against this backdrop, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was at 72.910, compared with 73.107 after the economic data..
July platinum rose $1.80 to end at $2,015.60 an ounce while September palladium added $1.10 to finish at $440.10 an ounce on Nymex. July copper fell by 1.35 cents to close at $3.5965 a pound.
