Gold steadily climbs to session tops, around $1420 level
- Upbeat US macro data lifted the US bond yields on Thursday and exerted some pressure.
- The USD stood tall near multi-week tops and further collaborated to the overnight slide.
- Traders now seemed inclined to lighten their bearish bets ahead of the US Q2 GDP print.
Gold prices edged higher on Friday and recovered a part of the previous session's sharp intraday slide to over one-week lows.
The precious metal on Thursday spiked to fresh weekly tops in a knee-jerk reaction to dovish ECB policy statement but quickly changed course following the release of upbeat US durable goods orders data for June.
The data reaffirmed expectations that the Fed is unlikely to deliver a 50 bps rate cut, which was evident from a strong intraday pickup in the US Treasury bond yields and weighed heavily on the non-yielding yellow metal.
Meanwhile, an intraday upsurge in the US bond yields helped the US Dollar to reverse its post-ECB dip and exerted some additional pressure on the dollar-denominated commodity, dragging it below the $1415 support area.
Despite the fact that the mentioned negative factors prevailed through the early European session on Friday, the precious metal gained some traction and the uptick could be solely attributed to some short-covering move.
As the focus shifts to Friday's important release of the advance US GDP print for the second quarter of 2019, bears now seemed reluctant to place any aggressive bets rather seemed inclined to lighten their positions.
Hence, it will be prudent to wait for a strong follow-through buying before traders start positioning for any further intraday appreciating back towards weekly lows en-route multi-year tops set last Friday.
Technical levels to watch