Gold turns lower for the day, remains confined in a range above $1550 level

• Gold fails to benefit from reviving safe-haven demand on Thursday.
• Bulls even shrug off weaker US bond yields, subdued USD demand.

Gold failed to capitalize on the early uptick to the $1564 area and has now drifted into the negative territory, albeit remained well within this week's broader trading range.

Following the overnight modest intraday rebound from the $1550 region, fears over the outbreak of coronavirus in China continued weighing on the risk sentiment and provided a minor lift to the precious metal's perceived safe-haven status.

Bulls still seemed reluctant

The global flight to safety was reinforced by a modest pullback in the US Treasury bond yields but did little provide any additional boost. The non-yielding yellow metal quickly ran into some fresh supply and refreshed session lows in the last hour.

Even a subdued US dollar price action failed to impress bullish traders, though might turn out to be the only factor that might extend some support to the dollar-denominated commodity and help limit deeper losses, at least for the time being.

In absence of any major market-moving economic releases from the US, the broader market risk sentiment and the ECB-led volatility in the market might provide some impetus and assist traders to grab some short-term opportunities on Thursday.

Technical levels to watch