Gold climbs to session tops, further beyond $1310 level

   “¢   USD fails to capitalize on the overnight rebound and helps regain traction.
   “¢   Dovish Fed outlook/renewed US-China trade tensions remained supportive.

Gold quickly reversed an Asian session dip to $1307 area and is currently placed at session tops, recovering all of the previous session’s modest pull-back from three-week tops.  

The US Dollar failed to capitalize on the overnight rebound from the post-FOMC slump to the lowest level since early February and eventually turned out to be one of the key factors underpinning demand for the dollar-denominated commodity.

With investors looking past Thursday’s upbeat US economic data, an ultra-dovish FOMC – indicating that there will be no more rate hikes in 2019, kept the USD under pressure and provided an additional boost to the non-yielding yellow metal.  

This coupled with resurfacing US-China trade tensions, especially after the US President Donald Trump said to keep tariffs on China for a substantial period of time, further benefitted the precious metal’s relative safe-haven status and remained supportive.

Adding to this, the fact that the commodity has managed to hold its neck above the key $1300 psychological mark could be another factor attracting some technical buying and contributing to the positive move for the fifth session in the previous five.

In absence of any major market moving US economic releases, the USD price dynamics and the broader market risk sentiment might continue to act as key determinants of the commodity’s move on the last trading day of the week.  

Technical levels to watch

A follow-through buying has the potential to lift the metal back towards $1320 supply zone before bulls eventually aim towards testing the next major hurdle near the $1329-30 region. On the flip side, any meaningful retracement might continue to find some support ahead of the $1300 handle, below which the commodity might accelerate the slide further towards $1294-93 horizontal support.