Gold pushes lower toward $1280 on strong USD and high risk appetite

• Wall Street extends gains on latest headlines surrounding the U.S. - China trade conflict.
• 10-year US T-bond yield pushes higher to support the greenback.
• US Dollar Index advances to 2-week highs above 96.30.

The XAU/USD pair started the last day of the week under pressure and extended its slide in the NA session to touch its lowest level in nine days at $1281. As of writing, the troy ounce of the precious metal was trading at $1282, losing more than $9, or 0.72% on a daily basis.

Earlier in the day, the positive market mood weighed on the traditional safe-havens such as the XAU. In the second half of the day, reports of China planning to offer a 6-year import boost of over $1 trillion to eliminate the trade imbalance with the U.S. allowed the risk appetite to stay strong toward the end of the week and helped major equity indexes in the U.S. to gain more than 1% on the day.

Additionally, the improved sentiment also boosted the yields of the Treasury bond and caused the USD to outperform its rivals. With the 10-year T-bond yield gaining more than 1.5%, the US Dollar Index stays near its two-week high that it set 96.40 in the last hour.

Today's data from the U.S. showed that the industrial production increased a little more than expected in December but the consumer confidence index deteriorated to its weakest level since Donald Trump became the president.

Technical levels to consider