Gold steadily climbs back above $1410 level

Gold regained positive traction on the last trading day of the week and recovered a part of the previous session's sharp intraday pullback from weekly tops.

Thursday's hotter-than-expected US core CPI tempered expectations for an aggressive easing by the Fed, which triggered a sudden upsurge in the US Treasury bond yields and turned out to be one of the key factors driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.

The US Dollar, however, failed to capitalize on the overnight rebound and came under some renewed selling pressure on Friday, helping the dollar-denominated commodity to defend the key $1400 psychological mark and regain some positive traction.

This coupled with fading optimism over a quick resolution to the prolonged US-China trade disputes further underpinned the precious metal's relative safe-haven status and remained supportive of an intraday uptick through the early European session.

It would now be interesting to see if the commodity is able to capitalize on the positive momentum or meets with some fresh supply at higher levels amid a follow-through pickup in the US bond yields and a slightly positive mood around equity markets.

Moving ahead, Friday's US economic docket - featuring the release of PPI figures for June, coupled with comments by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans will now be looked upon for some short-term trading opportunities later during the early North-American session.

Technical levels to watch