Gold holds steady around $1455 level, seems vulnerable

• The safe-haven gold benefitted from renewed tensions between the US and China.
• Weaker US bond yields remained supportive, albeit the uptick lacked follow-through.

Gold continued with its struggle to register any meaningful recovery and remained well within the striking distance of two-week lows set earlier this week.

Concerns over Hong Kong continued weighing on the global risk sentiment and turned out to be the only factors lending some support to traditional safe-haven assets, including Gold.

Focus remains on trade developments

It is worth recalling that the US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed two bills supporting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators and China has vowed to retaliate.

The prevalent cautious mood was further reinforced by weaker US Treasury bond yields, which remained supportive of a mildly positive tone surrounding the non-yielding yellow metal.

However, the fact that the latest development might have done little to dampen prospects for the US-China "phase one" trade deal kept a lid on any meaningful recovery for the metal.

This coupled with the recent US dollar bullish run to two-week tops further collaborated toward capping gains for the dollar-denominated commodity amid relatively thin liquidity conditions.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for some strong follow-through buying before confirming that the commodity might have bottomed out in the near-term or positioning for any further recovery.

In absence of any major market-moving US economic releases, the incoming trade-related headlines might continue to play a key role in producing some meaningful trading opportunities on Friday.

Technical levels to watch