On Friday, the yellow metal reached higher than expected. However, by the middle of Monday's trading, the rate had retreated back down to the previous price levels.
Namely, the metal traded between the 1,575.00 and 1,580.00 levels. These levels were being strengthened by the 55 and 100-hour simple moving averages.
Economic Calendar Analysis
The 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 is supported by the 100-hour SMA, currently located at 1,576.78. Thus, a reversal north could occur in the nearest future, and the rate could try to surpass the 1,590.00 level.
On the other hand, note that gold is squeezed by the 55– and 100-hour moving averages. If the given SMAs hold, it is likely that yellow metal could consolidate against the Greenback in the short term.
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 remain short on gold
Since Thursday, the Swiss Foreign Exchange gold sentiment was 55% short.
Namely, 55% of open gold position volume was in short positions and 45% was in long positions.
Meanwhile, in the 1000 base point range around the current metal's price the pending orders were mostly bullish– 71% of orders were to buy and 29% to sell.
The orders were 80% to buy on Friday.