Gold slides to session low, around $1485 on China’s optimistic trade remarks

• China’s optimistic trade-related comments exerted some fresh pressure.
• A strong upsurge in the US bond yields added to the intraday selling bias.
• A subdued USD price action helped limit deeper losses, at least for now.

Gold finally broke down of its Asian session consolidation phase and dropped to session lows, around the $1485 region in the last hour, eroding a part of the previous session's positive move.
 
The latest leg of a sharp fall came after some optimistic trade-related comments by China's Commerce Ministry, saying that the US and China have agreed to cancel existing tariffs in different phases.

Weighed down by renewed trade optimism

The latest remarks helped offset the overnight reports about the delay in signing of the so-called "phase one" US-China trade deal until December and led to a turnaround in the global risk sentiment.
 
This was evident from a sudden spike in the US equity indices futures, which dented demand for traditional safe-haven assets and turned out to be one of the key factors weighing on the precious metal.
 
Fading safe-haven demand was further reinforced by a strong upsurge in the US Treasury bond yields, which further collaborated towards driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.
 
However, the US Dollar failed to attract any meaningful buying interest and seemed to extend some support to the dollar-denominated commodity, helping limit deeper losses, at least for the time being.
 
Thursday's US economic docket lacks any major market-moving economic releases and hence, the incoming trade-related headlines might continue to play a key role in producing some short-term trading opportunities.

Technical levels to watch