Gold edged above $910 per ounce on Friday, but stayed below a five-week high of $925.15 hit the previous day as its safe-haven allure waned on the view that global economic woes could be easing. Trade was slow as many dealers were taking a wait-and-see attitude before key U.S. monthly jobs data at 1230 GMT. U.S. employers are expected to have cut 590,000 jobs in April, after slashing 663,000 in March, a Reuters survey estimated. Job cuts, falling home values and big stock losses led to a drop of $11.1 trillion, or about 18 percent, in U.S. households' wealth in 2008, Federal Reserve data show, one of the biggest drags on the global economy. Spot gold was at $912.90 per ounce at 0326 GMT, up 0.4 percent from New York's notional close of $909.05. "It will be a $910 and $917 trading range for the day time, as there's the U.S. jobs data coming out tonight. The market wants to see if the data comes in better than expected or not," said Ronald Leung at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers. Even if the job cut number comes in much smaller than the consensus and hits demand for gold as a safe-haven asset, the metal is seen well supported at or just below $900 as investors maintained their interest in gold, he said. "I think they will buy...They're waiting for the right timing to buy," he said. The results of the stress tests on U.S. banks late on Thursday provided no real surprises, but assured that the sector was in progress to restore credibility, a factor tempering once-aggressive demand by investors, analysts said. U.S. gold futures GCM9 eased 0.2 percent to $913.90 per ounce after settling at $915.50 on Thursday on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD, said holdings stood at 1,104.09 tonnes on Thursday, unchanged from the previous day. [GOL/SPDR] Other markets were also relatively calm and weren't giving direction to gold and other previous metals. The yen slipped against the dollar and the euro on Friday after the U.S. bank stress test results removed a major uncertainty in financial markets, while investors waited to see if a U.S. payrolls report due later in the day would help to further boost investors' appetite for risk. [nN07333426] [USD/] Asian shares slipped, with Tokyo's Nikkei average .N225 easing 0.1 percent and MSCI's broad measure of Asian stocks outside Japan falling 0.8 percent .MIAPJ0000PUS. Precious metals prices at 0324 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover Spot Gold 912.85 3.80 +0.42 9.63 Spot Silver 13.81 0.03 +0.22 -6.50 Spot Platinum 1141.50 -2.50 -0.22 -24.90 Spot Palladium 237.00 0.00 +0.00 -35.60 TOCOM Gold 2918.00 7.00 +0.24 -4.64 17905 TOCOM Platinum 3666.00 -54.00 -1.45 -31.34 6616 TOCOM Silver 436.00 0.20 +0.05 -19.41 274 TOCOM Palladium 763.00 33.00 +4.52 -43.52 408 Euro/Dollar 1.3359 Dollar/Yen 99.02 TOCOM prices in yen per gram, except TOCOM silver which is priced in yen per 10 grams. Spot prices in $ per ounce.

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