Forex Today: Gold hits new record-high, USD struggles to find direction

Here is what you need to know on Thursday, February 20:

While major currency pairs are having a tough time making a decisive move in either direction, Gold extends its uptrend to a new record-high on Thursday. The US economic calendar will feature the weekly Initial Jobless Claims report and the European Commission will publish the preliminary Consumer Confidence Index data for February. Later in the American session, several Federal Reserve (Fed) policymakers will be delivering speeches.

The minutes of the Fed's January policy meeting showed on Wednesday that officials debated whether it might be wise to slow or even pause the reduction of their balance sheet holdings, given that renewed concerns over the federal debt ceiling have come back into play. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump noted that it could be possible to make a new trade deal with China. These comments failed to trigger a noticeable market reaction and Wall Street's main indexes ended the day marginally higher. Early Thursday, US stock index futures trade in negative territory and the US Dollar Index holds steady near 107.00 after posting small gains for two consecutive days.

The data from Australia showed early Thursday that the Unemployment Rate edged higher to 4.1% in January from 4% in December, as expected. In this period, Full-Time Employment rose by 54.1K after declining by 23.7K in December. In the meantime, the People's Bank of China (PBoC), China's central bank, announced that it left the one-year and five-year Loan Prime Rates (LPRs) unchanged at 3.10% and 3.60%, respectively. AUD/USD edged slightly higher in the Asian trading hours and was last seen trading above 0.6360.

EUR/USD failed to gather recovery momentum and closed in the negative territory for the third consecutive day on Wednesday. The pair trades in a tight range below 1.0450 in the European morning on Thursday.

Although stronger-than-expected inflation data from the UK helped Pound Sterling stay resilient against its rivals in the early European session on Wednesday, GBP/USD lost its traction and closed the day marginally lower. The pair holds its ground to begin the European session and trades near 1.2600.

Growing expectations for a hawkish Bank of Japan (BoJ) policy outlook continue to support the Japanese Yen (JPY). Earlier in the day, Japan's 10-year government bond yield touched its highest level in 15 years. At the time of press, USD/JPY was trading at its lowest level since early December near 150.00, losing about 1% on the day.

Following Thursday's choppy action, Gold resumed its uptrend early Thursday and touched a fresh record high near $2,950.