OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2015. Gold fell to a three-month low on Tuesday, pressured by the dollar's rise to its highest in nearly 12 years and renewed expectations of a midyear interest rate increase in the United States.

Spot gold dropped to its lowest since Dec. 1 at \\$1,155.60 an ounce in early trading and was down 0.4 percent at \\$1,161.55 by 2:09 p.m. EST (1809 GMT), while U.S. gold for April delivery settled down \\$6.40 an ounce at \\$1,160.10.

Platinum fell to its lowest since July 2009 at \\$1,124 an ounce. The metal has dropped 6.3 percent since the start of the year on expectations of lower demand from the automotive sector and higher mine supplies.

Gold will remain under pressure, "given that the drums have started beating that the Fed could increase the interest rate soon," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at broker AvaTrade.

Friday's strong U.S. non-farm payrolls data boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve would begin increasing interest rates by the middle of the year.

The Fed has kept rates near zero since December 2008, boosting gold. But when the central bank started to signal it was looking to tighten its loose monetary policy, the metal began to fall.

Also, Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said on Monday that the U.S. central bank should promptly end its easy monetary policy.

The dollar climbed to its highest since September 2003 against a basket of major currencies, making gold more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Spot gold came off its lows but remained at levels not seen since early December.

"Gold has reached the support trend of its bearish channel, and the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement level of the upswing from the 2008 low, at \\$1,155," said technical analyst Fawad Razaqzada of Forex.com in London. "This is a key support level, make no mistake about it."

Investors were watching talks over the Greek debt crisis, where prolonged uncertainty could help safe-haven bullion.

Investor positioning indicated a bearish outlook. Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, fell 0.43 percent to 753.04 tonnes on Monday.

Spot silver fell 1 percent to its lowest in two months at \\$15.57 an ounce, then gave back some losses to trade at \\$15.64. Palladium dropped 2.4 percent to \\$800.75 an ounce, its biggest fall since Jan. 29.