Gold momentarily slips below $1400 mark, fresh weekly lows

• US-China trade optimism continues to dent the commodity’s safe-haven status.
• A modest USD uptick adds to the selling bias and the ongoing corrective slide.
• The downside remains cushioned amid renewed weakness in the US bond yields.

Gold momentarily slipped below the key $1400 psychological mark and refreshed weekly lows during the early North-American session.

The precious metal extended this week's retracement slide from multi-year tops and remained under some selling pressure for the second consecutive session on Thursday amid hopes of progress in the US-China trade talks.

The US President Donald Trump's crucial meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping - on the sidelines of G20 summit is expected to achieve some progress and the two leaders might declare a temporary trade war cease-fire. 

The optimism was seen lending some support to perceived riskier currencies - evident from a mildly positive mood around equity markets and turned out to be one of the key factors denting the precious metal's safe-haven status.

Adding to this, a modest US Dollar uptick, supported by hotter-than-expected US core PCE price index and mostly in line final Q1 GDP print, exerted some additional downward pressure on the dollar-denominated commodity.

Meanwhile, renewed weakness in the US Treasury bond yields, despite fading expectations of a 50bps rate cut in the July FOMC meeting, seemed to be the only factor helping limit the downside for the non-yielding yellow metal.

Hence, it would be prudent to wait for a strong follow-through selling below the mentioned handle before traders start positioning for any an extension of the ongoing corrective slide from six-year tops set on Tuesday.

Technical levels to watch