At midnight from Thursday to Friday, the yellow metal's price passed the resistance of the 100-hour simple moving average. By the middle of Friday's European trading hours, the rate had bounced off the resistance of the 1,570.00 level.
In the near term future, the pair was expected to trade between the 1,565.00 and 1,570.00 levels.
Economic Calendar Analysis
Next week, notable data releases are set to start on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, at 09:30 GMT, the UK Manufacturing Production, Monthly GDP and the Preliminary Quarterly GDP are set to be published.
Usually, the Monthly GDP and Manufacturing Production are released together. The quarterly GDP appears once every three months and causes a larger reaction than the monthly data. So, concentrate more on the pip moves on the historical table of the Preliminary GDP.
On Wednesday, at 01:00 GMT the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is scheduled to make a rate announcement. This event is expected to cause the largest move of the week.
Later in the day, the weekly US Crude Oil Inventories will be released. This week, the data will be out at 15:30 GMT.
On Thursday, the US CPI data sets are set to be published at 13:30 GMT. Last but not least, on Friday the US Retail Sales data will be out also at 13:30 GMT.
The week's event historical data tables have been published. Click on the headline below to read the article.
XAU/USD short-term forecast
During Friday's morning, the rate was testing the resistance level formed by the 200-hour SMA at 1,570.84 and the monthly PP at 1,573.09. In addition, the 1,570.00 round level was providing psychological impact.
If the given resistance holds, it is likely that a reversal south could occur in the nearest future. However, it is unlikely that the price for gold could decline below the psychological level at 1,550.00
Also, note that yellow metal would have to surpass the 55 and 100-hour SMAs at 1,560.00 and 1,565.00. If the given support levels hold, gold could continue to consolidate against the Greenback.
Hourly Chart
On the daily candle chart, it can be observed how the rate broke the channel up pattern, which guided the rate's surge since the start of December.
Meanwhile, take into account that the metal is overbought, as indicated by daily simple moving averages, which are located near the 1,500.00 level.
Daily Chart
Traders are neutral on gold
Since Thursday, the Swiss Foreign Exchange gold sentiment was 53% short. Namely, 53% of open gold position volume was in short positions and 47% was in long positions.
Meanwhile, in the 1000 base point range around the current metal's price the pending orders were neutral – 53% of orders were to buy and 47% to sell.