On Wednesday, the yellow metal was testing the resistance of the 55-hour simple moving average, which was located at midday at 1,396.35.
In general, the commodity price was expected to get squeezed in between the SMA and a technical support level above the 1,385.00 level.
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
Yesterday, the XAU/USD exchange rate tried to surpass the resistance formed by the 55-hour moving average at 1,396.43. During Tuesday's morning, the rate was testing the given resistance.
Note, that the price for gold is facing the support at the 1,387.50 mark. Thus, it is expected, that gold could trade sideways against the US Dollar between the given support and resistance levels in the short run.
However, if the given resistance does not hold, the price for gold could rise to the resistance level formed by the 100– and 200-hour SMAs, currently located circa 1,403.00.
Hourly Chart
On the daily chart, it can be observed that the decision to mark historical high levels was a correct one.
Namely, one can observe that the zone surrounding the August 2013 high level provided resistance to the commodity price.
Daily Chart
Open position volume proportion remains unchanged
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 bearish - 58% of orders were set to sell. Previously, 65% of orders were to buy.