Talking Points
– Gold Price 200 Day Average is Still Trouble for Bulls
– Looking longer-term? Review DailyFX’s 1Q Gold Projections
– Join Michael for Live Weekly Trading Webinars on Mondays at 12:30GMT (8:30ET)
Gold prices rallied for a fourth consecutive week with the precious metal up more than 0.4% to trade at 1253 ahead of the New York close on Friday. Bullion pared back a late-week rally on the heels of Friday’s NFP report with the prices failing a fourth attempt to close above the 200-day 52week moving averages at 1258.
Chart 1: Gold Daily Timeframe (May 2016 to April 2017)
U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday showed a gain of only 98K but the underlying metrics were strong with the headline unemployment rate falling to 4.5%, its lowest reading since mid-2007. The under-employment rate (U6) also saw an outsized downtick to the tune of 8.9% from 9.2%. Gold spiked on the release only to reverse sharply early in the US session.
Heading into next week, the trade remains vulnerable sub-1258 with interim support eyed at 1241– Note that a longer-term median-line rests just lower and a break below this level would suggest a more meaningful correction is underway with such a scenario targeting February 27th weekly reversal close at 1234 the Janay highs at 1220. Critical resistance remains up at 1278/79, where the 100% etc. the 61.8% retracement converges on long-term slope resistance.
Chart 2: Gold Speculative Sentiment Index (October 10, 2016 to April 7, 2017)
A summary of the DailyFX Speculative Sentiment Index (SSI) shows traders are net long Gold- the ratio stands at +2.36 (70.2% of traders are long) – a bearish reading.
- Long positions are 3.3% higher than yesterday and 3.4% above levels seen last week
- Short positions are 13.8% lower than yesterday and a 22.3% below levels seen last week
- Traders are further net-long than yesterday and last week, and the combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a stronger Spot Gold-bearish contrarian trading bias.
— Written by Michael Boutros, Currency Strategist
Follow Michaelon Twitter @MBForex contact him at mboutros@dailyfx.com
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