- Market sentiment is 52% bullish
- 51% of pending orders in 1000-pip range are set to BUY Gold
- Only Canadian data at 12:30 GMT
The yellow metal remains in the previous range. Moreover, the most notable thing is that the previous two trading sessions have marked almost perfectly symmetrical and identical flat candles.
The Census Bureau released two data sets simultaneously, where Residential Building Permits for the month of April came out in line with a forecast of 1.35M, moreover, the same number was released in the previous period.
The US Dollar's slight weakening may be affected due to the lower-than-expected Housing Starts data of 1.29M, compared to the forecast of 1.32M.
Only Canadian data on Friday
On Thursday the Dukascopy Analytics team hosted a macroeconomic data trading webinar, which can be found on our YouTube channel here.
In regards to Friday's trading session, the economic calendar is empty, if one is only looking for US data releases. So there are no events scheduled that can influence financial markets and financial instruments from the US Dollar's strength perspective.
However, there will be a Canadian data release occurring at 12:30 GMT. Namely, the Canadian CPI and Core Retail Sales will be published. The analytics webinar, which will cover the data release, will begin at 12:00 GMT.
XAU/USD tests long-term pattern
The slight period of consolidation during the past few trading sessions has formed a triangle-like formation, thus stranding the rate in a diminishing trading range.
It is more likely that this pattern is breached to the upside together with the 55-hour SMA. The yellow metal should subsequently target the 100-hour SMA, the 50.00% Fibonacci retracement and the breached channel circa 1,300.00.
This bullish scenario is likewise supported by the fact that the pair has been unsuccessfully testing the bottom boundary of the most senior channel (formed in November 2016) during the past two days.
In case a fall occurs, Gold should not exceed the 1,280.00 level.
Hourly Chart
On the daily chart one can notice, that the decline of the bullion was stopped by the support of the most dominant drawn channel up pattern. Due to that reason the continuation of the decline is not expected.
Moreover, one can notice that the commodity price has drawn almost perfect flat candles. However, one can notice that the mentioned support line on Friday began to slowly push the commodity price higher.
Daily Chart
Swiss market sentiment is almost neutral
SWFX market sentiment is bullish with 52% of traders holding long positions in this session. Meanwhile, pending commands are set to sell the yellow metal in 61% of all cases.
OANDA traders remain bullish, as 70% of open positions are long in this session. In addition, Saxo bank clients share the same sentiment with 75% long positions.