PRECIOUS-Gold hits record above $3,300 as trade tensions fuel rally

By Anmol Choubey

April 16 (Reuters) - Gold prices surpassed the $3,300 mark for the first time on Wednesday, as investors sought safe-haven assets after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on U.S. critical mineral imports.

Spot gold XAU= was up 2.2% to $3,299.85 an ounce as of 1107 GMT, after hitting a record high of $3,317.90 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures GCcv1 gained 2.3% to $3,315.80.

"Trump's trade war shows no signs of easing... sparking a fresh move towards safe havens and out of stocks," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.

Trump's probe, announced on Tuesday, is viewed as an attempt to push back on leading critical minerals producer China, and comes on top of reviews into pharmaceutical and chip imports.

Meanwhile, Asian and European shares fell along with U.S. stock futures after the U.S. Commerce Department announced new export licensing requirements for Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 artificial intelligence chips to China.

According to a recent BofA survey, 73% of respondents believe that the theme of "U.S. exceptionalism" has peaked, impacting markets, and 49% now view "long gold" as the most crowded trade, overtaking bets on U.S. tech giants for the first time in 24 months.

Gold has risen nearly 26% this year, buoyed by tariff disputes, strong central bank buying, expectations of interest rate cuts, and flows into bullion-backed exchange-traded funds.

ANZ on Wednesday raised its year-end gold price forecast to $3,600 per ounce and its six-month forecast to $3,500.

"The rally has become a bit unhinged, leaving it at risk of corrections. However we have for more than a year now seen corrections to be shallow, with underlying bids waiting on any setbacks," Hansen said.

Gold's relative strength index (RSI) stands above 70, indicating that the metal is overbought.

However, "the fundamentals here are too strong, and I can't really see another scenario different from the overall risk being tilted to the upside", said Ricardo Evangelista, senior analyst at brokerage firm ActivTrades.

Spot silver XAG= rose 2% to $32.94 an ounce, platinum XPT= was up 0.1% to $960.85, and palladium XPD= gained 0.6% to $977.09.