• Gold price lacks any firm intrada direction and oscillates in a narrow band on Tuesday.
• Subdued US Dollar price action and economic woes lend some support to the XAU/USD.
• Hawkish central banks continue to act as a headwind and cap gains for the yellow metal.

Gold price struggles to gain any meaningful traction on Tuesday and oscillates in a narrow trading band, around the $1,920 level through the Asian session. The XAU/USD, meanwhile, now seems to have found acceptance above the 200-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) for the first time since June 16 and might look to build on the recent recovery from the $1,893 area, or a three-and-half-month low touched last Thursday.

Economic woes lend some support to safe-haven XAU/USD

The incoming weaker economic data from the United States (US) cast doubts about the need for further policy tightening by the Federal Reserve (Fed), which keeps the US Dollar (USD) bulls on the defensive and lends support to the Gold price. It is worth recalling that the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Friday that the annual PCE Price Index decelerated to 3.8% in May from the 4.3% previous and the core gauge ticked down to 4.6% from 4.7% in April.

Furthermore, the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) Manufacturing PMI dropped to the lowest level since May 2020 and came in at 46.0 for June. This marks the eighth straight month of contraction, which adds to worries about a global economic downturn and further seems to benefit the safe-haven Gold price. Despite the supporting factors, the XAU/USD remains below the one-week high touched on Monday, warranting caution before placing aggressive bullish bets.

Traders await this week’s key releases from United States

Given that the US markets will be closed in observance of Independence Day, relatively thin liquidity is holding back traders on the sidelines ahead of this week's key releases from the US. The minutes of the June Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)meeting are due on Wednesday, which will be closely scrutinized for cues about the Fed's future rate-hike path. This will be followed by the US monthly jobs data - popularly known as the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) on Friday