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SINGAPORE, July 24 (Reuters) Gold fell on Monday as selling persisted in Japan and dealers said they expected more selling if gold failed to stay above a key support of $615 an ounce.

-- Spot gold fell to $617.40/618.90 an ounce from $619.50/621.00 late in New York on Friday, when it dropped nearly 2 percent on speculative profit-taking ahead of the weekend.

-- Benchmark gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange fell 32 yen per gram to 2,340 yen, tracking losses in New York's COMEX market.

-- The dollar steadied on Monday after ending last week lower on growing expectations the Federal Reserve could pause its two-year run of raising interest rates next month.

-- The euro inched down to $1.2680 , after rising 0.5 percent on Friday. It hit a three-month low of $1.2456 last week.

-- Platinum fell to $1,205/1,210 an ounce from $1,206/1,212 late in New York.

-- Sister metal palladium rose to $307/312 an ounce from $301/306.

-- Silver inched down to $10.70/10.80 an ounce from $10.78/10.88 late in New York.

Precious Metals Prices by 0057 GMT* Metal Last Net change Pct Move Gold 617.25 -2.75 -0.44 Platinum 1205.00 -1.00 -0.08 Palladium 307.00 8.00 +2.68 Silver 10.70 -0.03 -0.28 Change so far in 2006 Metal Latest bid End prev year Pct Move Gold 617.25 517.20 +19.34 Platinum 1205.00 968.00 +24.48 Palladium 307.00 254.00 +20.87 Silver 10.70 8.81 +21.45 * The closing prices used to calculate the net change may differ from New York's last quoted prices.

Reuters AD VP0740