Gold reverses early dip to 3-day low, turns neutral ahead of NFP

Gold reversed an early dip to three-day lows and is currently placed near the top end of its daily trading range, around the $1476-77 region ahead of the US monthly jobs report.

The precious metal witnessed some intraday selling during the early European session on Friday and was being weighed down by the prevalent risk-on mood, which tends to undermined demand for traditional safe-haven assets. The downtick, however, remained limited, rather was quickly bought into persistent uncertainty over a potential "phase one" trade deal between the world's two largest economies.

Traders turn cautious ahead of NFP

It is worth recalling that the US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that talks with China were going very well. This was a complete turnaround from a previous statement made earlier this week that a deal may not come until after the US presidential election in November 2020.

Apart from conflicting trade headlines, a modest pullback in the US Treasury bond yields extended some additional support to the non-yielding yellow metal and collaborated to the intraday uptick. Meanwhile, a subdued US dollar price action did little to influence demand for the dollar-denominated commodity.

Heading into Friday's important macro data, the uptick could further be attributed to some repositioning and warrant some caution before placing any aggressive bets. Hence, it will be prudent to wait for a sustained move in either direction before confirming the commodity's near-term trajectory.

Technical levels to watch