gold futures on wednesday were heading for another strong gain in 2022 after starting the year on the backfoot a softer tone for stocks and the us dollar and a slight retreat in yields appeared sufficient to give bullion loft february gold gcg22 gc00 rose 1240 or 07 to trade at 1827 an ounce following a 08 rise on tuesday the contract fell at the start of the week to its lowest level for a mostactive futures since dec 21 factset data show a gauge of the buck the ice us dollar index dxy  was trading 03 lower early wednesday while the 10year treasury note tmubmusd10y was edging back to around 165 strategists said that the commodity market was making its bullish bets on the outlook for gold amid the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes covid19 but were eagerly anticipating the minutes from the federal reserve’s dec 1415 meeting to glean further clues on the fed’s tactics for tackling rising inflation “the safehaven metals are getting some support from a bit more risk aversion in the general marketplace at midweek” wrote jim wyckoff senior analyst at kitcocom in a wednesday note “traders are awaiting the us data point of the day which is this afternoon’s federal open market committee minutes from the december meeting” he wrote minutes are set to be released at 2 pm eastern time about a halfhour after gold futures trade settles on comex the kitco analyst said that “february gold futures bulls have the overall nearterm technical advantage amid a threeweekold price uptrend in place on the daily chart” “bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close in february futures above solid resistance at 1840” wyckoff wrote adding that bears are looking at a breach of technical support at 1785 an ounce meanwhile metals markets didn’t show much of a reaction after adp reported that privatesector payrolls rose by 807000 in december more than double the 375000 expected by economists the report comes ahead of the closely watched labor department report due friday the official us jobs report is due friday with economists looking for the economy to have added a total 422000 jobs the jobs market is of importance for commodity markets because it could impact the fed’s plans after the central bank in december said it would winddown its asset purchases by march with projections showing three interestrate increases ahead in 2022