Gold steadied on Thursday to trade in a narrow range, after suffering its biggest daily decline in nearly four weeks in the previous session, as investors nervously eyed a looming deadline for averting a US fiscal crisis. Spot gold was nearly flat at $1,719.60 an ounce by 0722 GMT, after tumbling 1.3 percent in the previous session due to a heavy bout of stop-loss selling. US gold inched up 0.2 percent to $1,719.70, after dropping 1.5 percent on Wednesday.