Gold hangs near yearly lows, around $1290 level

   •  A modest USD weakness/reviving safe-haven demand extend some support.
   •  Surging US bond yields offset positive factors and seemed to cap gains.

Gold struggled to register any meaningful recovery and remained within striking distance of yearly lows touched in the previous session.

The precious metal seesawed between tepid/gains minor losses through the early European session, with a combination of diverging forces failing to provide any fresh impetus. 

A modest US Dollar retracement extended some additional support to dollar-denominated commodities - like gold. This coupled with cautious sentiment around equity markets, amid renewed geopolitical tensions, underpinned the precious metal's safe-haven demand and helped limit any immediate sharp downside.

North Korean concerns seem to have reemerged after Pyongyang signalled that its leader, Kim Jong Un, might pull out of next month’s summit with the US President Donald Trump and eventually weighed on investors' sentiment. 

The positive factors, however, were largely negated by the ongoing upsurge in the US Treasury bond yields, which kept a lid on any meaningful up-move for the non-yielding yellow metal.

Even from a technical perspective, the near-term oversold conditions warrant some consolidation before a resumption of the bearish slide. In absence of any major market moving US economic releases, the commodity seems more likely to extend its consolidative price-action and remain confined in a narrow trading range. 

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support is pegged near the $1286-85 region, below which the downfall is likely to get extended towards $1278-77 intermediate zone en-route $1270-68 strong support.

On the upside, the $1293-95 region now seems to have emerged as an immediate hurdle and is followed by the $1300 handle, which if cleared could lift the metal back towards $1306-07 region (200-DMA).