Investing.com - Gold prices rose slightly in Asia on Monday with a week-long holiday in China dimming regional activity and investors looking ahead to U.S. jobs data at the end of the week.
On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for December delivery rose 0.13% to $1,318.85 a troy ounce.
At the weekend, the semi-official PMI from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) came in at 50.4 in September, unchanged from last week and as expected.
In the coming week, the U.S. nonfarm payrolls report on Friday is seen by many as the clearest sign on the health of the labor market, amid ongoing speculation over whether U.S. interest rates will rise this year.
The Fed raised rates for the first time in almost a decade in December and forecast rates would rise four times this year, but officials have recently acknowledged that the mixed economic recovery means rates are likely to remain lower for longer.
Elsewhere in metals trading, silver futures for December delivery fell 0.01% to $19.212 a troy ounce, while copper futures edged down 0.05% to $2.211 a pound.
Last week, gold prices were little changed on Friday, as mixed U.S. data released on Friday weighed on the dollar and as sustained concerns over the European banking sector pushed traders to turn to safer assets.