Gold was steady above $1,300 an ounce on Friday, with safe-haven appetite buoyed by signs the US presidential election is tightening just days before next week’s vote.

Spot gold was unchanged at $1,303.26 an ounce at 0104 GMT. US gold futures were up about 0.1 per cent at $1,304.30 per ounce.

Hillary Clinton’s supporters nervously eyed opinion polls showing the Democrat with a tenuous lead over Republican rival Donald Trump on Thursday, with the White House candidates racing through vital battleground states in a late search for votes ahead of Tuesday’s election.

The key non-farm payrolls report will be released on Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters are looking for non-farm employment to have risen by 175,000 in October from 156,000 in September.

Asian shares slipped on Friday and the dollar nursed losses in a week marked by growing uncertainty about the outcome of the US presidential race.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down about 0.3 per cent on Friday.

BoE growth forecast

The Bank of England scrapped its plan to cut interest rates, which it said could now move up or down, and raised its forecasts for 2017 growth and inflation sharply due to the slide in sterling since Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

US services industry activity cooled in October amid a slowdown in new orders and hiring, suggesting a moderation in economic growth early in the fourth quarter.

A flurry of data from China in the coming weeks is expected to reinforce views that the world’s second-largest economy is stabilising, despite stubbornly weak exports and worries that a property boom is peaking.

VTB Capital, the investment banking arm of Russia’s second-biggest bank, plans to double its gold-trading volumes over the next three years from around 110-150 tonnes a year currently, said the firm’s head of global commodities.

SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings rose 0.47 per cent to 949.69 tonnes on Thursday.

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