Gold lacked any firm directional bias on Thursday and seesawed between tepid gains/minor losses, consolidating the recent upsurge to fresh multi-year tops. Against the backdrop of the recent escalation in the US-China trade tensions, growing pessimism over the global economic growth outlook provided a strong boost to traditional safe-haven assets and turned out to be one of the key factors behind the precious metal's strong rally from the post-FOMC swing lows to $1400 mark. Gold continues to benefit from the global flight to safety A series of dovish central-bank surprises on Wednesday underscored the market concerns and reinforced by a fresh leg of a free-fall in the US Treasury bond yields, which further benefitted the non-yielding yellow metal and collaborated to the overnight sharp up-move to levels beyond the key $1500 psychological mark.