Gold flirting with session lows, around $1470 region

Gold edged lower through the Asian session on Thursday and is currently placed near the lower end of its daily trading range, around the $1470 region.
 
The safe-haven precious metal witnessed some follow-through selling on Thursday and extended the previous session's late pullback from the vicinity of the 100-day SMA barrier, or near two-week tops, despite uncertainty over a phase one US-China trade deal.
 
The US President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs if phase one of a trade deal is not signed. Tensions between the two countries intensified further after the US Senate unanimously passed the Hong Kong Humans Right and Democracy Act bill on Tuesday.
 
Adding to this, reports on Wednesday suggested that the US and China may not reach a preliminary trade pact before next year, which shattered hopes of a partial agreement and weighed on the global risk sentiment – evident from weaker tone around equity markets.
 
Meanwhile, some renewed US dollar weakness also did little to lend any support to the dollar-denominated commodity. The fact that FOMC minutes on Wednesday indicated to keep policy on hold for a while seemed to be the only factor driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.
 
From a technical perspective, the commodity's inability to capitalize on the recent recovery move from three-month tops and repeated failures near a previous strong support-turned-resistance suggests that the recent bearish pressure might still be far from being over.
 
Hence, some follow-through weakness, back towards testing weekly lows around the $1455 region, now looks a distinct possibility amid absent relevant market-moving US economic releases on Thursday.

Technical levels to watch