Gold looks to close week with small gains below $1,470

• 10-year US Treasury bond yield posts modest gains on Friday.
• Cautious optimism on US-China trade deal weighs on safe havens.
• US Dollar Index stays in red near 98.

The precious metal struggled to find demand on Friday as the upbeat market mood on renewed hopes of the United States and China reaching a trade deal to avoid a tariff hike in December caused investors to move away from safe havens. Nevertheless, the broad-based USD weakness didn’t allow the XAU/USD pair to fall sharply.

As of writing, the pair was down 0.3% on the day at $1,466 but was on track to post small weekly gains.

Trade headlines continue to impact risk perception

The United States’ Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, on Friday said that there was a very high probability that the US would reach a trade deal with China. “We’re much farther along with details of the trade deal with China, there are many active calls,” Ross told Fox Business Network. “There will be another trade call with China on Friday.”

Reflecting the recovering sentiment, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield is up around 0.5% on the day and Wall Street’s main indexes are adding between 0.55% and 0.65%.

On the other hand, today’s disappointing macroeconomic data releases weighed on the greenback. The Federal Reserve’s monthly publication revealed that the Industrial Production and the Manufacturing Production in October decreased by 0.8% and 0.6%, respectively. The US Dollar Index lost its traction and was last down 0.15% on the day at 98.

Technical levels to watch for