Gold steadily climbs to session tops, still below $1700 mark

Gold edged higher through the early European session and was last seen trading near the top end of its daily trading range, around the $1695 region.

Following a modest $10 bearish gap opening on the first day of a new trading week, the precious metal attracted some buying near the $1675 region and moved back to retest 50-day SMA support breakpoint. The uptick lacked any obvious fundamental catalyst and could be solely attributed to a subdued US dollar price action.

The greenback consolidated Friday's goodish intraday bounce, which was further supported by upbeat US monthly jobs report. A subdued USD price action was seen as one of the key factors lending some support to the dollar-denominated commodity, albeit the prevalent risk-on environment kept a lid on any strong gains.

Growing optimism about a sharp V-shaped recovery for the global economic recovery, coupled with expectations that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic was over remained supportive of the upbeat market mood. This, in turn, might undermine the precious metal's safe-haven demand and hold bulls from placing any aggressive bets.

Even from a technical perspective, the commodity last week broke through a short-term ascending trend-channel support near the $1700 round-figure mark. A subsequent fall below the $1690 level added credence to a near-term bearish breakdown. Hence, the attempted recovery might still be seen as a selling opportunity.

In the absence of any major market-moving economic releases from the US, the broader market risk sentiment and the USD price dynamics might continue to play a key role in influencing the commodity's move on Monday.

Technical levels to watch