GOLD PRICE FORECAST: XAUUSD EDGED HIGHER AMID SOFTER BOND YIELDS, LACKS BULLISH CONVICTION

• Sliding US bond yields undermined the USD and assisted gold to regain positive traction on Tuesday.
• Aggressive Fed rate hike bets and the risk-on impulse kept a lid on any further gains for the metal.
• The market focus will remain glued to the release of the US consumer inflation figures on Wednesday.

Gold regained some positive traction on Tuesday and recovered a part of the overnight slide back closer to the $1,850 level, or a near three-month low touched last week. The XAUUSD maintained its bid tone through the early European session and was last seen trading just below the daily high, around the $1,861-$1,862 region.

A softer tone around the US Treasury bond yields kept the US dollar bulls on the defensive, which, in turn, was seen as a key factor that offered some support to the dollar-denominated commodity. Apart from this, concerns about softening global growth and a possible recession further underpinned the safe-haven gold.

That said, a combination of factors held back bulls from placing aggressive bets and kept a lid on any further gains for gold prices. A goodish recovery in the US equity futures, along with the prospects for a more aggressive policy tightening by the Fed, held back traders from placing bulls bets around the non-yielding gold.

In fact, the markets seem convinced that the Fed would need to take more drastic action to combat stubbornly high inflation and have been pricing in a further 200 bps rate hike for the rest of 2022. Hence, the focus will remain glued to the latest US consumer inflation figures for April, due for release on Wednesday.

In the meantime, expectations for rapid interest rate hikes in the US should act as a tailwind for the USD and further contributed to capping gold prices. In the absence of any major market-moving economic releases, the USD price dynamics and the broader market risk sentiment will be looked upon for short-term trading opportunities.