• Hawkish Federal Reserve comments fail to underpin US Dollar rebound despite poking XAU/USD bulls.
• Latest statistics from United States renew recession fears in the world’s largest economy and favor Gold buyers.

Gold price (XA/USD) make rounds to $1,930 during Friday’s sluggish Asian session, after rising to the highest levels since April 2022 the previous day. In doing so, the bright metal seems to weigh the latest Federal Reserve (Fed) comments with the fears of the economic slowdown in the United States. However, the downbeat US Dollar and optimism surrounding China keep the XAU/USD buyers hopeful.

Gold buyers cheer softer United States data

Although the recent US weekly jobless claims and monthly sentiment gauge from Philadelphia Fed appeared impressive, Gold buyers concentrated on the broadly downbeat US numbers to cheer the recession woes surrounding the world’s largest economy. That said, the US Unemployment Claims dropped to the lowest levels since late April 2022, to 190K for the week ended on January 13 versus 214K expected and 205K prior. Further, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey Index improved to -8.9 for January compared to -11.0 market forecasts and -13.7 previous readings. However, US Building Permits eased in December to 1.33M MoM versus 1.37M consensus and 1.351M prior while the Housing Starts also dropped to 1.382M during the stated month from 1.401M in November, versus 1.359M expected. It’s worth noting that the downbeat US Retail Sales and Producer Price Index (PPI) raised fears of an economic slowdown in the world’s largest economy after the softer wage growth and activity data flashed earlier.