Gold turns higher for the second straight session, lacks follow-through

Gold spiked to fresh session tops in the last hour, with bulls still awaiting a sustained move beyond the $1600 round-figure mark.

Following the previous day's intraday pullback and a subsequent dip to the $1583 region during the Asian session on Thursday, the commodity turned higher for the second straight session and was being supported by a combination of factors.

Mounting fears over the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic amid the ever-increasing cases and broader lockdowns across the world continued lending some support to the precious metal perceived safe-haven status.

The market concerns were further fueled by White House medical experts' warning that as many as 240,000 Americans might die from the respiratory disease, which suggested that the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.

Apart from this, a fresh leg down in the US Treasury bond yields exerted some downward pressure on the US dollar and further benefitted the non-yielding yellow metal, albeit a modest recovery in the US equity future capped gains.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for some strong follow-through buying before traders start positioning for any further near-term appreciating move as the focus now shifts to Thursday's release of the US initial weekly jobless claims.

Consensus estimates predict that another 3.5 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ended March 27. The data should influence the USD price dynamics and produce some short-term trading opportunities around the dollar-denominated commodity.

Technical levels to watch