GOLD PRICE REMAINS CONFINED IN A RANGE AS TRADERS AWAIT US INFLATION DATA ON THURSDAY

• Gold price attracts some buyers on Wednesday, albeit it lacks bullish conviction.
• Hawkish Fed expectations underpin the USD and act as a headwind for the metal.
• Traders also seem reluctant to place aggressive bets ahead of key US macro data.

Gold price (XAU/USD) edges higher during the Asian session on Wednesday and for now, seems to have stalled the previous day's modest pullback from the $2,040-$2,042 resistance. Despite the uptick, the precious metal remains confined in a familiar range as traders keenly await the US Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index on Thursday for cues about the Federal Reserve's (Fed) rate-cut path. This, in turn, will play a key role in influencing the near-term US Dollar (USD) price dynamics and provide a fresh directional impetus to the non-yielding yellow metal.

In the meantime, the FOMC meeting minutes released last week, along with the recent comments by Fed officials, suggested that the US central bank is in no rush to cut interest rates. This assists the USD Index (DXY), which tracks the Greenback against a basket of currencies, to hold steady above a technically significant 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) and a multi-week low touched last Thursday. Apart from this, the recent risk-on rally across the global equity markets contributes to capping the safe-haven Gold price, though sliding US Treasury bond yields act as a tailwind