Gold eases from two-week highs, trades below $1,590
- 10-year T-bond yield extends slide after long weekend.
- Risk aversion on Tuesday helps gold find demand as a safe-haven.
- Wall Street looks to open in red amid resurfacing coronavirus worries.
The XAU/USD pair fluctuated in a tight range on Monday in the absence of significant market drives and turned north during the Asian trading hours on Tuesday with the precious metal capitalizing on risk-off flows. After advancing to its highest level in two weeks near $1,590, the pair has gone into a consolidation phase and was last seen trading at $1,587.60, up 0.43% on a daily basis.
Latest data published by Chinese authorities revealed that the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections rose to 72,436 as of Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, Apple warned that it may not be able to meet its sales target for the first quarter of 2020 due to the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak on production and Chinese demand.
Global stocks underperform
Reflecting the dismal market mood, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield lost its traction after returning to action following a long weekend and was last down nearly 3%. Moreover, major European equity indexes are down between 0.6% and 1% on the day while US stocks futures point to a negative opening.
On the other hand, the greenback is staying relatively resilient against its major rivals, especially the risk-sensitive ones, on Tuesday to limit the pair's upside for the time being. At the moment, the US Dollar Index is posting small daily gains at 99.22. The NY Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Index will be the only data featured in the US economic docket and participants are likely to pay close attention to the T-bond yields' and Wall Street's performance.
Technical levels to watch for