Solid News
Gold Renews All-time Highs
1/9/2023 10:49 AMDuring the Asian session, the XAU/USD pair is growing moderately, renewing the May highs and testing the level of 1875.00 for a breakout, supported by the American macroeconomic statistics, which testifies in favor of the US Fed's monetary policy easing.
On Friday, the December labor market report was released, reflecting a drop in the unemployment rate from 3.6% to 3.5%, with forecasts for its increase to 3.7% amid a slowdown in average wage growth, which allows the regulator to follow its planned plan, which suggests one or two more interest rate hikes in early 2023, after which the agency may take a wait-and-see approach. Additional pressure on the dollar at the end of last week was exerted by the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Services PMI, which declined markedly for the first time in three years: in December, the indicator fell from 56.5 points to 49.6 points, with a forecast for a reduction to 55.0 points, however, this can be taken as evidence of a rapid slowdown in inflation, which will allow the US Federal Reserve not to take active steps for some time.
According to the latest report from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the number of net speculative positions in gold last week amounted to 141.7K against 136.9K a week earlier. The tendency to increase the positions of sellers continues: the "bears" hold the lead in general transactions, and the balance of swap dealers is 219.789K against 87.558K of the "bulls"; sellers increased the number of contracts by 5,056K last week, while buyers reduced them by 1,567K.
On the daily chart, Bollinger bands are steadily growing: the price range is expanding but not as fast as the "bullish" sentiment develops. MACD grows, keeping a relatively strong buy signal (the histogram is above the signal line). Stochastic shows similar dynamics, but the indicator line is approaching its highs, indicating that gold may become overbought in the ultra-short term.
Resistance levels: 1879.30, 1900.00, 1915.00, 1930.00. | Support levels: 1869.49, 1857.27, 1843.37, 1828.22.
