On Thursday, the yellow metal faced the resistance of the 1,585.00 level, which caused a decline down to the 1,571.00 level, where support was found.
At mid-day on Friday, gold traded near 1,580.00, had the support of the 55 and 100-hour simple moving averages, and in theory should once again test the 1,585.00 resistance.
Economic Calendar Analysis
Next week, as the first of the month, is bound to have monthly data releases.
Among them will be the US ISM Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Indices.
On Tuesday, look out for the Reserve Bank of Australia revealing their official Cash Rate. A rate cut is expected.
Note that on Wednesday, at 13:15 GMT the ADP Non-Farm Employment Change is scheduled to be published. However, with an exception in December, the event has not caused an increase of volatility on USD pairs.
As each week, the US Crude Oil Inventories will be released. This week, the data will be out on Wednesday at 15:30 GMT.
Last but not least, on Friday, at 13:30 GMT both Canada and US will release their employment data. The release will consist of two numbers from Canada and three from the US.
The week's event historical data tables have been published. Click on the headline below to read the article.
XAU/USD short-term forecast
Note that yellow metal could gain support of the 55– and 100-hour moving averages, currently located circa 1,575.00. Thus, the price for gold could try to surpass the 1,585.00 level.
On the other hand, gold could trade sideways against the US Dollar in the 1,580.00 area in the short term. Also, it is unlikely that bears could prevail in the market, and the rate could decline below the 200-hour SMA at 1,568.68.
Hourly Chart
For a rather long period of time, the technical levels of the daily candle chart have been ignored, as the metal had left far below it the daily simple moving average.
However, on Thursday, a junior channel up pattern was added to the chart. It can be observed that commodity price has been following this pattern since the start of December, and the pattern captures the Iran-US conflict surge.
Daily Chart
Swiss traders go short on gold
Since the start of last week, the Swiss Foreign Exchange sentiment had been near neutral. Since Thursday, the sentiment was 55% short. Bears had acquired slight dominance.
It could have occurred due to various reasons, as bulls could have taken profits, and bears opened shorts in the expectations of a retracement back down.
Meanwhile, in the 1000 base point range around the current metal's price the pending orders were mostly bullish– 80% of orders were to buy and 20% to sell.
The orders were 71% to buy on Wednesday.