Gold posts modest daily losses, trades below $1,460

After snapping its four-day losing streak and gaining $7 on Tuesday, the troy ounce of the precious metal struggled to continue to gain value on Wednesday. As of writing, the XAU/USD pair was trading near $1,458, losing 0.2% on a daily basis.

Tuesday's headlines surrounding the US-China trade conflict revealed that sides were very close to finalizing phase one of the trade agreement and allowed Wall Street's main indexes to climb to fresh all-time highs. The fact that gold was able to rise despite the upbeat market mood suggested that the move was a technical recovery.

On Wednesday, major European equity indexes and the 10-year US Treasury bond yield are both registering small daily gains, showing that investors are still not interested in safe-havens.

Markets come to a halt ahead of US data

In the second half of the day, market participants will be assessing the critical macroeconomic data releases from the US ahead of the Thanksgiving break.

At 13:30 GMT, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis will publish its second estimate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the third quarter, Personal Spending, Personal Income and core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index for October. Additionally, Durable Goods Orders and weekly Initial Jobless Claims data will be looked upon for fresh impetus as well.  

Previewing the US data, “headline PCE likely rose a tenth to 1.4% y/y. Separately, we expect personal spending to advance 0.2% m/m for a third consecutive month in October, with a firm increase in services spending leading the upside,” said TD Securities analysts. “Lastly, We expect durable goods orders to retreat -1.0% m/m in October, stringing together its second consecutive decline."

Technical levels to watch for