Gold slides to over 1-week lows, farther below $1500 mark

Gold edged lower on the last trading day of the week and dropped to over one-week lows, below the key $1500 psychological mark during the early European session.
 
Following the previous session's good two-way moves, the precious metal came under some renewed selling pressure on Friday and extended this week's sharp retracement slide from near three-week tops amid fading safe-haven demand.

Stronger USD/fading safe-haven demand weigh

Despite the ongoing political drama in the United States, optimism over a resolution of the prolonged US-China trade disputes remained supportive of the prevalent risk-on mood and weighed on traditional safe-haven assets - including Gold.
 
Improving global risk sentiment was evident from a positive mood around equity markets, which allowed the US Treasury bond yields to tick higher and further collaborated towards driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.
 
Meanwhile, the US Dollar built on its recent bullish momentum and climbed to two-week tops, back closer to the 99.00 handle, which exerted some additional downward pressure on the dollar-denominated commodity - Gold.
 
This coupled with the fact that some short-term trading stops might have been triggered on a sustained break below the $1500 handle now sets the stage for a further intraday depreciating move ahead of Friday's key US macro releases.
 
The US economic docket highlights the release of durable goods orders and Core PCE price index, which along with the release of some additional second-tier data might produce some meaningful trading opportunities on Friday.

Technical levels to watch