The gold price on Friday extended the current declines to a new 9-month low of about $1,680 before recovering late on to $1,695. The yellow metal continues to trade within a descending channel formation in the 60-min chart.

The currency decline has pushed the price of gold closer to oversold levels of the 14-hour RSI. It remains a few levels below the 100-hour SMA while the 200-hour SMA is more levels higher. A short-term rebound could be on the cards.

Gold Price Fundamentals Overview

From a fundamental perspective, the yellow metal is trading at the back of a relatively busy period in the market. On Friday, the US non-farm payrolls for February outperformed the expected job tally of 182k with 379k. The unemployment rate for the month also dropped to 6.2% down from 6.3% in January. The market was not expecting any change from the previous month. On the other hand, the average hourly wage growth beat the year-over-year expectation of 5.1% with 5.3%, the same growth rate posted in January.

On Thursday, the initial jobless claims for the week ending February 26 beat the expectation of 750kwith 745k. The continuing claims for the preceding week came in at 4.295 million, which was slightly better than the expected claim count of 4.3 million. On the other hand, factory orders for January beat the (MoM) expectation of 2.1% with a change of 2.6%. Earlier in the week, The ISM Manufacturing PMI for February outperformed expectations while the Services PMI came short of estimates.

Gold Price Technical Analysis (the 60-min Chart) 

Technically, the price of gold appears to be trading within a descending channel formation in the 60-min chart. This indicates a significant short-term bearish bias in the market sentiment. The price of the yellow metal remains very close to the oversold levels of the 14-hour RSI.

The bulls will be targeting short-term profits at around $1,720 or higher at $1,740. On the other hand, the bears will look to extend the current declines towards $1,680 or lower to $1,660.

Gold Price Technical Analysis (the Daily Chart)

In the daily chart, the gold price appears to be trading within a gently descending channel formation. This indicates a slight long-term bearish bias in the market sentiment. It has now crossed the oversold levels of the 14-day RSI. This could trigger a rebound.

The bulls will be targeting long-term rebound profits at around 50% and 38.20% fib levels at $1,767 and $1,837, respectively. On the other hand, the bears will look to pounce at around the 76.40% fib level at $1,609 or lower at $1,535.