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Gold prices fell on Tuesday as the precious metal continued to adjust after a recent strong rally and the market waited for U.S. data and comments from Federal Reserve officials for more clues on the interest rates path.

Spot gold was down 0.5% at $2,308.09 per ounce by 1102 GMT.

The non-yielding bullion is down 6% from a record high of $2,449.89 per ounce touched on May 20 amid a rally which happened against traditional headwinds such as a strong dollar and high interest rates.

    "The quarter ahead of us is probably where gold takes a pause before rallying again. Gold had rallied pretty hard in April-May and now it is going through a bit of adjustment to the reality," said Nitesh Shah, commodity strategist at WisdomTree.

    "Once we start seeing rate cuts gold will start rising again," Shah said. He forecasts gold price at $2,570 in June 2025, subject to cooling inflation and other factors.

    As to crucial categories of gold demand, a pause taken by China's central bank in May gold purchases continued to weigh on the market.

    However, an annual survey of central banks by the World Gold Council (WGC) delivered its highest share of respondents saying they expected their gold reserves to increase within 12 months.

"The survey indicates that the central banks are willing to continue buying," Shah said.

Meanwhile, global physically-backed gold exchange traded funds (ETFs), another crucial category of demand, were unable to make it three straight weeks of net inflows, with $294 million of net outflows last week, according to the WGC.

Spot silver fell 1.3% to $29.10, under pressure from lower gold and copper prices. However, Shah expects the metal to get support in coming months from this year's deepening structural market deficit amid growth in solar panel usage.

Platinum slid 0.2% to $962.75 and palladium lost 1.8% to $873.