Gold extended its sharp retracement from all-time highs and dived to fresh session lows in the last hour, with bears now eyeing a break below the $1900 mark. The precious metal witnessed a dramatic intraday turnaround following the Asian session uptick to the $1980 region and snapped seven consecutive days of the winning streak. The pullback was exclusively sponsored by a goodish US dollar rebound from two-year lows, which tends to undermine demand for the dollar-denominated commodity.

Expectations that policymakers have moved closer to agreeing on the next US fiscal stimulus package extended some support to the USD. This coupled with a strong pickup in the US Treasury bond yields provided an additional boost to the buck and further collaborated towards driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.