Gold pauses for breath, silver matches 6-mth high

SINGAPORE, Dec 1 (Reuters) Gold paused for breath on Friday after rising to its highest in more than three months the previous day on safe-haven buying as the U.S. dollar fell against major currencies.

-- Spot gold was at $646.80/647.80 an ounce by 0032 GMT, hardly changed from $647.20/648.20 late in New York on Thursday, when it had jumped to its highest since Aug. 10 at $648.50 an ounce.

-- Benchmark gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange gained 30 yen per gram to 2,434 to track a rally in New York's COMEX market.

-- Silver matched a six-month high of $13.96 an ounce. The metal was last quoted at $13.92/13.99 in New York.

-- Dealers said gold and silver would watch the currencies for direction but the metals could see long liquidation on any sustained reversal of the dollar and energy prices.

-- The euro was steady at $1.3251 , having hit a session high of $1.3275 on Thursday -- its highest since March 2005. The market awaits the release of a manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management on Friday.

-- Platinum rose to $1,176/1,183 an ounce from $1,175/1,180 late in New York.

-- Palladium eased to $326/331 an ounce from $327/331.

REUTERS SBA BST0639