Gold climbs to session tops, around $1960 region

Gold continued gaining positive traction through the first half of the European trading action and shot to fresh daily tops, around the $1960 region in the last hour.

The precious metal managed to regain positive traction on the last trading day of the week and reversed the previous day's intraday retracement slide from over one-week tops. The Fed Chair Jerome Powell's dovish comments continued weighing on the US dollar, which, in turn, extended some support to the dollar-denominated commodity.

During the highly anticipated speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Thursday, Powell outlined the new monetary policy strategy and signalled an increased tolerance for higher inflation. Powell said that the Fed is willing to allow inflation to run hotter than normal in order to support the labor market and broader economy.

However, the prevalent risk-on mood – as depicted by a strong rallying the equity markets – might undermine the precious metal's safe-haven status. This coupled with a goodish pickup in the US Treasury bond yields might further contribute towards capping the upside for the non-yielding yellow metal, at least for the time being.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for some strong follow-through buying, possibly beyond the overnight swing highs, around the $1975-77 region, before positioning for any further appreciating move. In the meantime, traders will take cues from Friday's second-tier US economic data for some short-term opportunities.

Technical levels to watch