Gold reverses an early dip to $1550 area, turns flat for the day

Gold reversed an early dip to the $1550 region and is currently placed near the top end of its daily trading range, albeit remained well below two-week highs set in the previous session.

Following an early uptick on Tuesday, the precious metal witnessed an intraday turnaround and dropped to near one-week lows. A late pick up in the US dollar demand was seen as one of the key factors that prompted some selling around the dollar-denominated commodity.

However, a weaker tone surrounding the US equity markets extended some support to traditional safe-haven assets and helped the precious metal to bounce off daily lows. The commodity finally settled with only modest losses, albeit lacked any strong follow-through momentum.

As investor assessed the risk of the outbreak of a new coronavirus in China, improving global risk sentiment pushed the US Treasury bond yields higher and exerted some fresh pressure on the non-yielding yellow metal through the early part of Wednesday's trading action.

The commodity, however, showed some resilience at lower levels and largely shrugged off the prevailing negative factors. Meanwhile, the uptick lacked any obvious catalyst and thus, runs the risk of fizzling out rather quickly in the absence of any market-moving US economic data.

Technical levels to watch