• Gold price continues with its struggle to gain traction and remains confined in range.
• The uncertain Fed rate cut path is holding back traders from placing directional bets.
• Subdued USD demand and a positive risk tone contribute to the range bound price action.

Gold price (XAU/USD) extends its sideways consolidative price move during the Asian session on Thursday as traders remain uncertain about the timing and the likely pace of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve (Fed) this year. The markets seem convinced that the US central bank will eventually start cutting interest rates in May, if not March. This keeps the US Dollar (USD) bulls on the defensive, below the highest level in almost three months touched earlier this week and acts as a tailwind for the precious metal.

That said, a slew of influential Fed officials recently indicated that the central bank is in no hurry to start lowering borrowing costs in the wake of the resilient US economy. This remains supportive of elevated US Treasury bond yields and caps the upside for the non-yielding Gold price. Apart from this, the prevalent risk-on environment turns out to be another factor undermining the safe-haven XAU/USD. This, in turn, is holding back traders from placing aggressive directional bets and leading to subdued range bound price action