DEMAND to buy gold from central banks led bullion-market headlines on Tuesday, while the metal held near yesterday's 12-week highs versus a falling US Dollar.

World stock markets bounced from their week-long drop, but London's FTSE index held flat as UK Prime Minister Theresa May met with her Cabinet to try and rescue her "Chequers Deal" proposals for next March's Brexit – a plan rejected by the European Union as well as many of her own Conservative Party MPs.

Monday's rise in bullion prices saw investors move to buy gold exposure through ETF trust fund products, led by the third daily growth in 4 sessions for the largest such fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca:GLD).

Marking the GLD's most consistent run of investor inflows since March, yesterday's 4.1 tonne addition took the quantity of gold need to back GLD shares back up to end-August levels above 748 tonnes.