By Sethuraman N R
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Gold edged down on Friday as investors turned cautious ahead of U.S. jobs data later in the day, but the precious metal remained on course for a sixth consecutive weekly gain.
Spot gold was trading down 0.1 percent at $1,358.36 an ounce by 0418 GMT. Bullion is up over 1 percent so far for this week.
U.S. gold fell 0.1 percent to $1,360.20 an ounce.
"We have seen some slight correction in gold prices from yesterday...Prices have come up quite a lot. It was long time since many of them decided to take profits," said Brian Lan, managing director at Singapore-based gold dealer GoldSilver Central.
Ahead of the closely watched U.S. non-farm payrolls report, data published on Thursday suggested a rebound in job growth after May's paltry gains.
U.S. private payrolls increased more than expected in June as small businesses ramped up hiring, and fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week.
"A very strong jobs figure will trigger some short term pain for gold, however, the underlying uptrend should prevail in the medium term," MKS Group trader James Gardiner wrote in a note.
But any weakness in hiring could be an indication that the U.S. Federal Reserve may not raise interest rates anytime soon amid the economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote, analysts said.
Gold is sensitive to higher rates, which lift the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets such as bullion, while boosting the dollar, in which it is priced.
Investors poured the most money into U.S.-based funds invested in precious metals since February, adding $2 billion to in the latest week, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday..
Technical analysts at ScotiaMocatta said pegged support for gold at $1,346 and resistance at $1,375.30, with the RSI (relative strength index) currently showing the yellow metal to be slightly in overbought territory and added that profit-taking may emerge in the short-term.
SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell 0.42 percent to 978.29 tonnes on Thursday from 982.44 tonnes on Wednesday. [GOL/]
In wider markets, Asian stocks looked set to post their biggest weekly loss in three weeks on Friday and government bond yields plunged to record lows. [MKTS/GLOB]
Silver, which touched a two-year high on Monday, was trading up 0.4 percent at $19.73.
Among other precious metals, platinum and palladium were down 0.2 and 0.3 percent at $1,083.80 an ounce and $606 an ounce, respectively.
(Reporting By Nallur Sethuraman and Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Joseph Radford and Ed Davies)
