Gold steady near seven-week highs ahead of U.S. jobs data

By Nithin ThomasPrasad

(Reuters) - Gold held steady on Friday, close to a seven-week high hit earlier this week, as the dollar eased to hover near multi-month lows ahead of monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls data due out later and amid continuing U.S. political uncertainty.

Spot gold was nearly flat at $1,268.00 per ounce at 0434 GMT. It was on track to end the week almost unchanged.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery fell 0.02 percent to $1,274.10 per ounce.

"Investors are cautious ahead of the data that's coming out of the U.S. on Friday and that is why it's been a bit quiet," said Brian Lan, managing director at gold dealer GoldSilver Central in Singapore.

Markets are now awaiting July's employment report, due out later in the session, for clues on whether it will impact the timing of the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy tightening.

"The dollar weakening on news of developments in the ongoing U.S. elections investigations also assisted gold quite a bit," according to Lan.

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury investigation in Washington to examine allegations of Russian interference in the last year's vote and has started issuing subpoenas, sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

The Republican Party's repeated failures to overhaul the healthcare system and multiple congressional and federal investigations into President Donald Trump's campaign have cast a shadow over his first six months in office.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major peers, languished near fifteen-month lows hit earlier this week.

"We expect gold to trade entirely on the nuances of the U.S. dollar ahead of the data," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA.

Spot gold may test a support at $1,264 per ounce, a break below which could cause a further loss to the next support at $1,258, according to Reuters technical analyst, Wang Tao.

Among other precious metals, silver rose 0.2 percent to $16.65 per ounce, after falling to a one-week low in the previous session.

Platinum fell 0.2 percent to $958.80 per ounce and was on track for gaining more than 3.5 percent this week.

Palladium was flat at $884.50 per ounce and was up less than 1 percent this week.

(Reporting by Nithin Prasad and Arpan Varghese in BENGALURU; Editing by Joseph Radford and Tom Hogue)