Gold drops to 7-day lows, around $1280 level on stronger USD

After an initial uptick to $1289 area, gold came under some renewed selling pressure and has now dropped to fresh multi-day lows. 

The precious metal extended Monday's sharp reversal move from three-week tops and traded with a bearish bias for the third consecutive session amid persistent US Dollar strength. 

The ongoing upsurge in the US Treasury bond yields underpinned the greenback demand and was seen exerting pressure on the non-yielding/dollar-denominated yellow metal.

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Adding to this, fading safe-haven demand on improving investors' risk appetite, as depicted by a strong up-move across European equity markets, also did little to stall the commodity's slide to its lowest level since Oct. 9, back closer to 100-day SMA support. 

Next in focus would be speeches by influential FOMC members - New York Fed President William Dudley and Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, which would be looked upon to grab some short-term trading opportunities. 

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support is pegged at 100-day SMA, currently near the $1276-75 region, which if broken could accelerate the slide towards $1268-67 horizontal support. On the upside, $1284-85 zone now seems to act as immediate hurdle, above which a bout of short-covering could lift the metal back towards $1291 intermediate resistance ahead of the key $1300 psychological mark.