The yellow metal had not declined much in the aftermath of reaching the 1,300.00 level. In general, it had consolidated its gains by slightly retracing down to 1,298.00.
In regards to the near term future, the consolidation should be followed by a surge.
During this week there will be a couple of macroeconomic events, which are notable enough to impact currency exchange rates.
On Wednesday, Aussie traders have to watch out for the Australian Wage Price Index publication at 01:30 GMT. It is the Australian equivalent of the UK Average Earnings Index.
During the same day, at 06:00 GMT and at 09:00 GMT GDP data will be published in the European Union. Namely, at 06:00 GMT watch the German Preliminary GDP release and at 09:00 GMT the flash EU GDP will be out.
These data sets are not the ones that usually cause big moves. However, during the recent months we have seen changes in that. The EU data has resumed to cause moves on the EUR pairs.
Also on Wednesday, the Canadian CPI and US Retail Sales will be published at 12:30 GMT. The CPI caused moves of 23 to 61 pips since December on USD/CAD. Meanwhile, the US retail sales have created moves from 12 to 40 base points on EUR/USD.
Early on Thursday, at 01:30 GMT the official Australian employment change will be published. The data is expected to cause a minor impact. This event is the last notable of the week.
Watch this week's economic calendar analysis and leave comments with questions about the specifics.
XAU/USD short-term forecast
Yesterday, the XAU/USD exchange rate breached the falling wedge pattern north and skyrocketed to the 1,300.00 level.
From the one hand, if the bulls continue to prevail in the market, the rate could maintain its growth in the nearest future. The price for gold could target the psychological level at the 1,305.00 mark.
Otherwise, if the demand for gold as for the safe-haven asset decreases, the exchange rate could trade down. It is unlikely, that the price for gold could drop lower than the 1,290.00 mark due to the support of the 55–hour SMA.
Hourly Chart
On the daily candle chart the commodity price has broken the strong resistance cluster near the 1,290.00 level.Namely, the upper trend line of a channel down pattern, a 23.60% Fibonacci retracement level and two daily simple moving averages were ignored during the fundamental jump of the metal's price.
Daily Chart
Short sentiment continues to increase
On Monday, the Swiss Foreign Exchange sentiment increased to 67%. It could have happened due to gold bulls taking profit from the sudden jump.
On Tuesday, the trend continued, as already 69% of all open position volume was in short positions.
Meanwhile, in the 1000 base point range around the current price 62% of pending orders were set to buy the metal.
These orders might be the close by stop losses of the short positions just above the 1,300.00 level.