Gold reversed an early uptick to $1246 area and has now drifted into negative territory for the third consecutive session.

The precious metal struggled to build on last week's strong up-move to five-month lows, with a combination of factors holding the bulls on the defensive through the early trading hours on Wednesday.

The US Dollar stood tall near one-month tops and was seen as one of the key factors weighing on the dollar-denominated commodity. The greenback extracted some support from rebounding US Treasury bond yields, which staged a goodish rebound from three-month lows and also collaborated towards driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal.