2019.09.1706:46:00UTC+00Gold Prices Subdued Ahead Of Central Bank Meetings

Gold prices were flat to slightly lower on Tuesday as investors await key central bank meetings in the U.S. and Japan.

While the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter point in response to slowing global economic growth and muted inflation, the Bank of Japan is likely to leave its monetary policy unchanged.

The Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England will also announce their monetary policy decisions this week.

Spot gold held largely unchanged at $1,497.97 per ounce while U.S. gold futures were down 0.4 percent at $1,505.35 per ounce.

Geopolitical developments and U.S.-China trade talks also remained on investors' radar.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday it looked like Iran was behind attacks on oil plants in Saudi Arabia but stressed that he would "like to avoid" a military conflict with Tehran.

"That was a very large attack and it could be met with an attack many, many times larger very easily by our country, but we are going to find out who definitively did it first," Trump said.

Deputy trade negotiators for the United States and China will meet in Washington beginning on Thursday, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office said.

That meeting will be followed by a meeting of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with China's top negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, in early October.