SINGAPORE: Gold was trading in a tight range on Thursday, supported near $1,335 an ounce by weak US data, with investors awaiting further cues from developments in Ukraine and a key jobs report.
Traders said they expect a quiet trading session ahead of Friday's US nonfarm payrolls report, which should help them gauge the strength of the labour market in the world's top economy and the outlook for the Federal Reserve's stimulus.
Tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine should in the meantime support gold, often seen as a safe-haven asset.
"In the next few days, the situation in Ukraine will continue to be uncertain and will keep the markets nervous. Because of that, I expect an upside potential in the short term for gold prices," said Alexis Garatti, an economist at Haitong International Research in Hong Kong.
Spot gold was down slightly by 0.1 percent at $1,335.60 an ounce by 0721 GMT, after rising slightly by 0.2 percent in the previous session on soft data on US private hiring and services sector growth.
Gold hit a four-month high on Monday near $1,355 an ounce after Russia's incursion into Ukraine's Crimea region over the weekend. Russia and the West face their most serious confrontation since the Cold War over Ukraine, a major commodities exporter and strategic link between East and West.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis made little headway at talks in Paris on Wednesday.
The US State Department dropped diplomatic niceties and all but accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of lying about events in Ukraine, publishing a list of what it said were 10 of his "false claims."
DATA EYED
After recent data showed the US economy has been impacted by severe weather conditions, financial markets are looking towards a jobs report on Friday for direction.
Jobs growth likely picked up enough in February to encourage the US Fed to continue to scale back its monetary stimulus, although the gain is likely to be tepid given the unrelentingly harsh winter weather.
"Since there has been no major development in Ukraine, people are looking for the nonfarm data before taking any big positions," said one gold trader.
Among other precious metals, platinum was trading near a six-month high on supply worries.
Wage talks between the world's top platinum producers and South Africa's Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union collapsed on Wednesday, dashing hopes for an end to a crippling six-week strike.
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