SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Gold bounced back on Monday, inching closer to last week’s 13-month high as the dollar remained under pressure ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy meeting.

The U.S. dollar was at one-month lows against a basket of major currencies with the Fed seen almost certain to stand pat at this week’s policy review.

Spot gold had risen 0.5 percent to $1,254.70 an ounce by 0212 GMT, while U.S. gold eased 0.3 percent to $1,256 an ounce.

The main focus is the U.S. central bank’s policy meeting on March 15-16, after it lifted rates for the first time in nearly a decade in December.

Investors in the precious metals market are also looking at a Bank of Japan meet.

The BOJ’s policy board is set to discuss this week whether to exempt $90 billion in short-term funds from its newly imposed negative interest rate, people familiar with the matter said, after the securities industry warned that investment money would be driven into bank deposits.

“We have two central bank meetings this week as the BOJ commence a two-day meeting today and the FOMC announce their interest rate decision on Wednesday,” said MKS Group trader Sam Laughlin.

Support at $1,235 should keep the metal buoyant leading into the Fed announcement, while $1,275-$1,280 will likely cap any moves higher, the trader said.

After rolling out bold measures to boost the euro zone economies, including increased asset-buying and a deeper cut to deposit rates, ECB President Mario Draghi on Thursday signalled there would be no further rate cuts.

The relatively weak dollar and a repricing of expectations for U.S. interest rate rises have helped gold rebound by more than 18 percent this year.

Bullion regained its role as a shelter for risk-averse investors, in the face of tumbling equities and fears of a global economic slowdown.

Hedge funds and money managers increased their bullish position in COMEX gold to the highest in 13 months in the week to March 8, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed on Friday, as safe-haven buying lifted prices to the highest since February 2015.

Physical gold demand slowed in top consumer China last week, while a strike by jewellers protesting against the imposition of a tax curbed demand in No. 2 market India.

(Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Richard Pullin and Joseph Radford)

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(Reuters) – London Stock Exchange Group, which is in talks to merge with Deutsche Boerse to create a pan-European trading house, reported a 31 percent rise in full-year adjusted pre-tax profit on Friday.

The company, which owns Borsa Italiana and the London Stock Exchange, said discussions with Deutsche Boerse were ongoing over a potential merger which would create substantial revenue and cost benefits.

LSE and Deutsche Boerse said last week they were in merger talks, although New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange has raised the prospect of a bidding war by saying it is considering making a counter-offer.

Adjusted pre-tax profit rose to 643.4 million pounds ($910.80 million) from 491.7 million pounds a year earlier.

Revenue rose 78 percent to 2.28 billion pounds. Revenue includes both continuing and discontinued operations and excludes unrealised gains and losses for 2014 at LCH.Clearnet.

Analysts had forecast on average full-year pre-tax profit of 589.01 million pounds. Revenue fell short of forecasts for 2.396 billion pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company proposed a higher final dividend of 25.2 pence per share, implying a 20 percent increase in the dividend for 2015.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith and Jane Merriman)

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