Gold fades a bullish spike to multi-year tops, drifts into negative territory

Gold faded the Asian session bullish spike to multi-year tops and dropped to fresh session lows, around the $1385 region in the last hour. 

The precious metal extended its recent bullish trajectory on Friday and a combination of supporting factors pushed it through the key $1400 psychological mark for the first time since September 2013. 

An increasingly dovish stance by the Fed on Wednesday, showing readiness to cut interest rates to support economic growth and combat subdued inflationary pressure, provided a strong boost to the non-yielding yellow metal.

This coupled with escalating geopolitical tensions - especially after the downing of the US surveillance drone by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard near Strait of Hormuz, further benefitted the precious metal's safe-haven status. 

Meanwhile, a modest US Dollar rebound at the start of the European session, which tends to undermine demand for the dollar-denominated commodity, prompted some profit-taking at higher levels amid overbought conditions.

Adding to this, the latest optimism over a possible resolution to the prolonged US-China trade tensions might further collaborate towards capping gains ahead of next week's Trump-Xi meeting at the G20 meeting in Japan.

In the meantime, Friday's US economic docket - featuring the flash manufacturing PMI and existing home sales data will now be looked upon for some short-term trading impetus later during the early North-American session.

Technical levels to watch