- 61% of all SWFX open positions are long
- 51% of pending commands were to buy the metal
- Gold opened Tuesday's session at 1,136.96
- Economic events to watch over the next 24 hours: All quiet
Both building permits and housing starts dropped more than expected last month, suggesting that the Q4 growth rate could be possibly revised downwards. According to the US Department of Commerce, new-home construction fell 18.7%, the biggest decrease in almost two years, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units in November, while market analysts anticipated a slight deceleration to 1.23 million during the reported period. Housing starts tend to be volatile on a monthly basis. Meanwhile, the October figure was revised up to a 1.34 million-unit pace, the highest level since July 2007, from the originally reported 1.32 million. The Commerce Department also reported that building permits declined 4.7% to an annualized rate of 1.20 million units, following October's upwardly revised reading of 1.26 million, whereas economists expected them to decrease to a 1.24 million unit pace. Nevertheless, the National Association of Homebuilder's sentiment measure, released on Thursday, jumped to 70 points in December, the highest level in 11 years, compared to the previous month's figure of 63. December's increase was driven in large part by Donald Trump's surprise victory in the US presidential elections last month.
US consumer prices rose at a slower pace last month compared with October but the underlying inflation trend remained promising. On Thursday, the US Department of Labor said its Consumer Price Index advanced 0.2% in November after rising 0.4% in the preceding month as food costs moderated and the price of gasoline fell. On an annual basis, the CPI climbed 1.7%, the largest increase since October 2014, following the previous month's 1.6% gain. Analysts expected the CPI grow 0.2% on a monthly basis and 1.7% compared to a year ago in the reported month. Meanwhile, the so-called Core CPI jumped 0.2% in November after climbing 0.1% in October, driven by higher rents. Despite last month's increase, the annual core inflation rate held steady at 2.1%. Other data released on the same day showed the US Philly Fed Index jumped to 21.5 in November, up from October's 7.6 and well above forecasts of 9.1 points, whereas the Department of Labor reported the number of initial claims dropped 4,000 to 254,000 in the week ending December 10, compared to the preceding week's 258,000. After the release, the US Dollar was seen trading at 1.0419 against the Euro, 117.99 against the Japanese Yen and 1.2470 against the British Pound.
Upcoming fundamental releases: All quiet on Tuesday
During Tuesday's trading session there are no fundamental data releases set to occur, which would possibly even slightly impact the price of the yellow metal. Due to that reason traders are set to keep analyzing the technical data.
XAU/USD retreats on Tuesday
Daily chart: The yellow metal retreated on Tuesday morning. As it was forecasted before, the bullion did not manage to break the resistance put up by the weekly pivot point at 1,140.81 and began a retreat after a few attempts in breaking the level of significance. Due to that the metal is positioned to continue the decline, as the closest level of support is at 1,127.20, where the lower Bollinger band is located at. Moreover, afterwards the closest support is located near the 1,119, where a strong support cluster begins.Daily chart
Hourly chart: The hourly chart reveals that, exactly as forecasted, there was a second attempt to break through the weekly PP at 1,140.81 at 16:00 GMT on Monday. Afterwards, the yellow metal's price retreated. Moreover, during the move the bullion move below the 20 and 55-hour SMAs and bent the lower Bollinger band. Due to that there are actually not even any minor levels of support, which could be taken into account, and which could stop the fall of the commodity price.
Hourly chart
SWFX sentiment stays bullish
The optimistic OANDA Gold traders have found the Bullion less attractive on Tuesday, as open positions were 72.02% long, compared to 75.51% on Monday. Meanwhile, traders of SAXO bank seem to have slightly increased their bullish stance even more, as Tuesday showed 69.91% of traders betting the metal will surge, compared to 66.64% during the previous session.