Gold struggling to decisively break through 200-DMA hurdle

Gold struggled to build on Friday's strong up-move to near two-week highs and has failed to decisively move beyond the very important 200-day SMA hurdle near $1230-31 region.

With markets looking past last week's dovish testimony by the Fed Chair Janet Yellen and a duo of downbeat US macro data (CPI and retail sales), a modest US Dollar recovery kept a lid on the dollar-denominated precious metal's up-move at the start of a new trading week. 

Adding to this, today's upbeat Chinese economic data, which eased worries of an economic slowdown in the world's second largest economy, also did little to boost the yellow metal's safe-haven appeal.

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Moreover, prospects of tighter monetary policy stance from various global central banks further collaborated towards capping demand for the non-yielding metal. Hence, this week's monetary policy decisions from the BoJ and ECB would now be looked upon for some fresh guidance and determine the commodity's movement in the near-term.

Technical levels to watch

A strong follow through buying interest beyond $1233 level has the potential to lift the metal further towards 100-day SMA barrier near $1247 region, with some intermediate resistance near $1240 horizontal zone.

On the flip side, any pullback below $1226 level now seems to find strong support near $1220 region, which if broken would turn the commodity vulnerable to head back towards retesting $1213 recent daily closing lows support.