Gold drops as expected

The yellow metal declined, as forecast. Namely, the monthly pivot point just above the 1,385.00 level was reached on Tuesday.

The decline was started, as previously forecast, by the resistance of the hourly simple moving averages.

Bureau of Labor Statistics released the US ISM Non-Farm Employment Change data, which came out better-than-expected of 244K compared with the forecast of 162K.

According to the official release: "Notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing."

This week the data will come from the US. There are FOMC Meeting Minutes incoming and a couple of minor data releases.

The FOMC Meeting Minutes will come first, as they will be published at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the US CPI and Core CPI data will be published at 12:30 GMT.

On Friday, the US Producers Price Index will be released at 12:30 GMT.

For more information watch this week's Economic Calendar Analysis

XAU/USD short-term forecast

The yellow metal's price was pushed down by the resistance of the 200-hour simple moving average above the 1,405.00 level on Monday. Additional pressure was provided by the 55 and 100-hour SMAs.

This resulted in a decline that by the middle of Tuesday's London trading session had reached the support of a monthly pivot point at 1,385.30.

In general, the rate was expected to trade sideways above this level until the resistance of the before mentioned simple moving averages approach and push the rate through it.

Hourly Chart

Daily Chart

Traders go short on Gold

Since the middle of Monday's London trading session, 55% of open position volume on the Swiss Foreign Exchange was in short positions.

Meanwhile, in the 1000 base point range around the current metal's price the orders were bullish - 65% of orders were set to buy.