PRECIOUS-Gold inches up ahead of US jobs report

SINGAPORE, July 6 (Reuters) - Gold inched up on Friday, on
course for a second straight week of gains, as investors await
the all-important U.S. June employment report to gauge the
health of the world's top economy for trading cues.

FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot gold crept up 0.1 percent to $1,606.10 an
ounce by 0037 GMT, on course for a weekly rise of half a
percent.
* U.S. gold futures contract for August delivery
edged down 0.2 percent to $1,606.70.
* The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a record
low on Thursday, as widely expected, to breathe life into a
deteriorating euro zone economy but steered clear of more
dramatic measures such as buying government bonds or flooding
banks with fresh liquidity.
* China's central bank cut interest rates for the second
time in a matter of weeks on Thursday, stepping up efforts to
bolster an economy that last quarter probably suffered its
weakest growth since the global financial crisis.

* The Bank of England, whose rates are already at a record
low 0.5 percent, said it would restart its printing presses and
buy 50 billion pounds ($78 billion) of assets with newly created
money to help the economy out of recession. [ID:ID:nL6E8I55W6]
* All eyes are on the U.S. non-farm payrolls data due later
in the day. Economists polled by Reuters expected employers to
have added 90,000 new workers in June, compared to a one-year
low of 69,000 jobs in May.
* Thursday's data showed that U.S private employers stepped
up hiring in June and the number of Americans filing new claims
for jobless benefits last week fell by the most in two months,
hopeful signs for the struggling labour market.
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MARKET NEWS
* The euro struggled at five-week lows on the greenback and
life-time troughs against commodity currencies like the
Australian dollar on Friday as markets were underwhelmed by the
European Central Bank's latest attempt to bolster the region's
economy.
* U.S. stocks edged down on Thursday as economic stimulus
measures by major central banks failed to excite investors
before a U.S. jobs report expected to show tepid growth.

DATA/EVENTS
1000 Germany Industrial output mm May
1230 U.S. Non-farm payrolls June

PRICES

Precious metals prices 0037 GMT
Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Volume
Spot Gold 1606.10 1.77 +0.11 2.70
Spot Silver 27.75 0.09 +0.33 0.22
Spot Platinum 1469.25 0.07 +0.00 5.47
Spot Palladium 584.75 3.97 +0.68 -10.38
COMEX GOLD AUG2 1606.70 -2.70 -0.17 2.55 2127
COMEX SILVER SEP2 27.74 0.07 +0.25 -0.63 708
Euro/Dollar 1.2386
Dollar/Yen 79.93
COMEX gold and silver contracts show the most active months

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Eric Meijer)