Gold falls to session low, bears eyeing a break below $1300 mark

   “¢   A goodish bounce in the US bond yields prompts some fresh selling on Thursday.
   “¢   Reviving USD demand adds to the weakness; cautious mood fails to lend any support.

Gold extended its steady intraday decline and is currently placed at session lows, with bears now eyeing a follow-through weakness below the key $1300 psychological mark.

The precious metal failed to capitalize on the recent positive momentum and erased the previous session’s goodish up-move to 1-1/2 week tops, shrugging of weaker-than-expected Chinese industrial production data and the prevalent cautious mood.  

Data released on Thursday showed China’s industrial output grew at the slowest pace in 17 years for the first two months in 2019 and dented investors’ appetite for riskier assets, though did little to boost the commodity’s relative safe-haven status.

A goodish pickup in the US Treasury bond yields turned out to be one of the key factors prompting some fresh selling around the non-yielding yellow metal. This coupled with a modest US Dollar demand exerted additional downward pressure on the dollar-denominated commodity.

Moving ahead, there aren’t any major market moving US economic data due for released on Thursday and hence, the US bond yields/USD price dynamics might continue to play an important role in influencing the commodity’s intraday momentum.

Technical levels to watch

On a sustained weakness below the $1300 mark, the commodity is likely to accelerate the slide towards $1294 horizontal support before eventually falling to $1290 level en-route $1287-86 support zone. On the flip side, the $1308-09 region now seems to have emerged as an immediate resistance, which if cleared could lift the metal further towards its next hurdle near the $1314-15 supply zone.