OUTLOOK-India gold futures seen trading sideways

MUMBAI, June 29 (Reuters) - India's gold futures may trade in a range for the week, with investors eyeing U.S. jobs data slated later in the week for direction, analysts said. The most active August contract MAUQ9 was 0.05 percent lower at 14,636 rupees per 10 grams at 6:13 p.m., down 1.3 percent from its two-week high of 14,823 rupees struck last week.

Dometic gold has been trading with a negative bias but largely in a range on waning safe-haven appeal of the yellow metal due to positive data from the U.S..

"Gold would be trading sideways probably until non-farm pay rolls on Thursday," said Pradeep Unni, senior research analyst with Richcomm Global Services.

"We expect some kind of consolidation this week," said Harish Galipelli, head of research with Karvy Comtrade in Hyderabad.

"Gold may trade in the range of 14,400-14,800 rupees," added Galipelli.

Analysts said market would pay close attention to U.S. payrolls figures, due on Thursday, for any signs of improvement in the economy's health.

According to a Reuters poll, non-farm payrolls are expected to drop to 363,000 in June compared to 345,000 in May. See [ID:nLT651939]

The U.S. unemployment rate is projected to rise to 9.6 percent in June from 9.4 percent in May.

"Technically gold is land-locked in the narrow ranges, but the trend seems to be convinced to the downside having failed to break and hold above the 14,850 -14,900 rupees resistances for whole of last week," said Unni.