Gold climbs toward $1315 area, eyes on Wall Street

• DXY stays in the negative territory on Friday.
• U.S. – China trade conflict continues to hurt the sentiment.
• US stocks futures point to a negative start.

After dropping to a fresh 10-day low of $1302.70 on Thursday, the XAU/USD pair reversed its course and started to retrace this week’s fall with the precious metal finding demand as a safe-haven. At the moment, the pair is trading a little below $1315, adding 0.38% on a daily basis.

Reports of U.S. President Trump not planning to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of the March 1 deadline revived concerns over the possibility of the trade conflict lasting longer than initially anticipated. The souring market mood toward the end of the week weighed on risk-sensitive equity indexes and Wall Street is signalling a lower start to the day with the S&P 500 Futures dropping 0.5% ahead of the opening bell.

The modest selling pressure surrounding the greenback on Friday provides an additional boost to the pair as well as investors seem to be taking advantage of the empty economic calendar to cash in their profits. At the moment, the DXY is losing 0.1% on the day at 96.50.

If the risk-aversion continues to dominate the markets in the second half of the day, the pair could look to finish the week flat near $1317.