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Gold edged down on Friday as investors turned cautious ahead of U.S. jobs data later in the day, but the precious metal remained on course for a sixth consecutive weekly gain.

Spot gold was trading down 0.3 percent at $1,356.41 an ounce by 0656 GMT. Bullion has risen about 1 percent so far this week.

"A very strong jobs figure will trigger some short term pain for gold, however, the underlying uptrend should prevail in the medium term," MKS Group trader James Gardiner wrote in a note.

Investors poured the most money into U.S.-based funds invested in precious metals since February, adding $2 billion to in the latest week, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

The dollar edged down against most major currencies in Asian trade on Friday but remained on track for a weekly gain.

It's those high prices have, in part, kept central banks from buying gold, wrote Simona Gambarini in a note Wednesday. She continued:

"That said, high gold prices haven’t prevented the official sector from increasing their gold reserves in the past. What’s more, according to a Fitch Ratings report, the level of negative-yielding global debt has risen to almost $12 trillion in July, a 12.5% increase since the end of May as the economic and political uncertainty following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) has boosted demand for safe havens. With rates having turned negative in most of Europe and Japan and likely to remain so for some time on "Brexit" woes, the opportunity cost of holding gold has all but disappeared."

Reference: Reuters, Yahoo Finance