Gold continues struggle for clear direction ahead of key central bank meetings

To keep things brief, gold has a favourable seasonal tailwind in trading this month and in January. However, the situation this time around is rather different considering that a more hawkish Fed may be in play.

"The Fed may move to increase the pace of tapering in January and that could spook gold bugs and the technical itself don't look too encouraging.

Recent price action sees gold continuing to gyrate near $1,800 but buyers are unable to keep any push above the confluence of the key daily moving averages @ $1,791.

That remains a key level that buyers need to work their way through in order to try and push back above $1,800 and contest the key trendline resistance from the August 2020 and November 2021 highs.

It is a tough one to call at the moment considering the dollar's resilience amid the Fed's hawkishness but one thing working in gold's favour is that at least real yields are still sitting very much in negative territory across the globe."

The predicament above continues to hold for gold, with the key daily moving averages seen @ $1,789-93.

Gold's next steps will be highly dependent on the Fed's narrative later this week. Whether or not the seasonal tailwind will be backed up by fundamental and technical factors will be key for the next big move in gold.