Gold jumps to session tops, around $1490 level

• The prevalent cautions mood underpinned demand for traditional safe-haven assets.
• The USD on the defensive after weaker US retail sales data and remained supportive.

Gold jumped to fresh session tops, around the $1490 region in the last hour and has now recovered a major part of the overnight downfall.
 
Following a brief consolidation through the early North-American session, a combination of supporting factors helped the precious metal to regain some positive traction and quickly reverse an early dip to weekly lows.

Weaker US data prompts some intraday short-covering move

Against the backdrop of resurfacing US-China trade tensions, the prevalent cautious mood around equity markets was seen as one of the key factors underpinning demand for traditional safe-haven assets – including Gold.
 
This coupled with a subdued US Dollar demand, weighed down by the ongoing slide in the US Treasury bond yields, further underpinned demand for the dollar-denominated commodity and remained supportive of the uptick.
 
Meanwhile, the latest leg of a sudden spiked over the past hour or so followed the disappointing release of US retail sales data, which signalled a slowdown in consumer spending and fell in September for the first time in seven months.
 
The data reinforced market expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates again at its upcoming meeting on October 29-30 and further collaborated to the intraday short-covering bounce around the non-yielding yellow metal.
 
It, however, remains to be seen if bulls are able to capitalize on the uptick or the commodity once again meets with some fresh supply near the key $1500 psychological mark and remain confined within the recent trading range.

Technical levels to watch