Gold scales late-April highs after dovish Fed

(Reuters) - Gold prices extended gains on Thursday to touch their highest in more than nine months, after the U.S. central bank raised interest rates by an expected 25 basis points and comments from Chair Jerome Powell were read as dovish by the market.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold was up 0.1% to $1,952.29 per ounce, as of 0023 GMT, after hitting the highest level since April 2022 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures rose 1.4% at $1,969.40.

* The Fed on Wednesday scaled back to a quarter-percentage-point rate increase after a year of larger hikes. Powell warned of further monetary policy tightening but also noted the progress on disinflation, which he said is in its early stages.

* Gold tends to benefit in lower interest rate environment, as it reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion.

* The Bank of England and the European Central Bank are expected to raise rates by 50 bps later in the day.

* India raised total taxes on silver imports 15% and on silver dore to 14.35%, the government said in a statement on Wednesday, in an effort to align the duty structure of the metal with gold.

* Spot silver gained 0.5% to $24.09 per ounce, platinum rose 0.6% to $1,009.62 and palladium was flat at $1,669.59.

DATA/EVENTS (GMT)

0030 Australia Building Approval Total YY Dec

1200 UK BOE Bank Rate Jan

1315 EU ECB Refinancing Rate Feb

1315 EU ECB Deposit Rate Feb

1339 US Initial Jobless Clm Weekly

1500 US Factory Orders MM Dec

0130 - BOJ Deputy Governor Masazumi Wakatabe to deliver speech and hold a news conference in Shizuoka

1345 - European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde speaks to reporters in Frankfurt following the Governing Council's monetary policy meetingconference

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)