Gold trades with modest losses, just above $1600 mark

Gold edged lower for the second straight session on Thursday, with bears awaiting a sustained break below the $1600 round-figure mark.

The precious metal extended the previous day's intraday pullback from two-week tops and was being weighed down by the latest optimism over the passage of a massive $2 trillion US economic relief package. However, a combination of factors extended some support to the commodity and helped limit losses.

The prevailing cautious mood around equity markets amid worries over the spread of COVID-19 continued underpinning the commodity's perceived safe-haven demand. This coupled with persistent selling bias around the US dollar further benefitted the dollar-denominated commodity and cushioned the downside.

The greenback remained depressed for the fifth straight session on Thursday in the wake of the Fed's unlimited QE, which helped ease concerns about tightening liquidity conditions. This comes on the back of mounting fears over an imminent global recession and might strengthen the commodity.

Moving ahead, market participants now look forward to the release of the highly anticipated US initial weekly jobless claims for the week ended March 20. Economists are looking for claims to soar to 1,000K as compared to the previous week's reading of 281K.

The US economic docket also features the release of the final GDP print, which is expected to confirm that the economic growth stood at 2.1% annualized pace during the final quarter of 2019 and might fail to provide any meaningful impetus.

Technical levels to watch