• Gold price remains mildly bid near one-week-old resistance surrounding nine-month high.
• China’s Lunar New Year (LNY) holidays, pre-FOMC absence of Fed talks restrict market moves.
• Softer US Dollar keeps XAU/USD buyers hopeful ahead of PMIs, US Q4 GDP.

Gold price (XAU/USD) dribbles around $1,930 as bulls keep the reins after a five-week uptrend, printing mild gains to reverse the previous day’s pullback. In doing so, the precious metal aptly depicts the market’s conditions amid a light calendar and absence of Chinese traders, not to forget the Federal Reserve (Fed) policymakers’ stipulated off from the stage.

China’s Lunar New Year (LNY) celebrations restrict the market moves in Asia not only because the dragon nation is the biggest economy in the region but also because the nation’s reopening recently bolstered global markets. Even so, the market optimism surrounding Beijing remains on the table and keeps the Gold price firmer due to China’s dominance in the XAU/USD market.

On the other hand, Fed policymakers sneak into the two-week silence period ahead of the February Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and dropped the last sentences to defend the hawkish bias. Even so, the market forecasts Fed’s slow interest-rate increases for the second straight meeting in February, as well as the nearness to policy pivot. That said, downbeat US data and easing inflation woes underpinned the dovish market’s expectations from the US central bank.

Against this backdrop, the US Treasury yields remain pressured around multi-day, fading the last few days’ corrective bounces, while the US stock futures print mild losses and the Asia-Pacific equities trade mixed.

Although Gold traders have started the week in a sluggish mode, the first readings of January’s Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMI) and the US four-quarter (Q4) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could offer active days ahead. That said, XAU/USD traders will be interested in softer US data to keep the latest upside momentum intact.