Investors increased net long positions on COMEX for the third consecutive week, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed Tuesday, pushing it to the highest since early February 2015.
Net long positions in gold held by managed-money investors rose 11.7% to 144,899 contracts in the week to March 22, just below the three-year high of around 153,000 contracts seen in January 2015.
Strong investor support has added momentum to gold's bull run this year, up around 20% since the start of 2016.
But recent price falls could be the result of profit-taking by the same investors.
A recovering dollar and an greater expectations of a increase in US interest rate in recent weeks have caused gold to give up some of this year's gains, to trade around $1,220/oz Tuesday morning.
Gold dipped to a five-week low of $1,210/oz Monday.
Commerzbank said Tuesday, the price slide could be due to "ongoing profit-taking" by speculators. "In other words, correction potential had built up on this side, meaning that the covering of some of these bets clearly exacerbated the price fall."
Meanwhile, inflows into SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded product, totaled just 4.76 mt for the week ending Thursday, down from additions of 20.21 mt a week earlier, according to data released by the company Monday.
Total assets in the fund, at 823.74 mt, are the highest since December 2013.
Net long positions in silver were up 7.8% to 54,701 contracts, according to CFTC data.
Platinum was up 0.4% to 16,927 contracts and palladium was 20.5% higher to 8,213 contracts.
