The gold price on Friday continued to struggle below the $1,960 level amid increased bearish pressure. The price of the yellow metal now trades at $1,939. Earlier in the day, gold fell to trade at around $1,912 before bouncing back late on.
Gold is pinned below the 100-hour and the 200-hour SMA lines in the 60-min chart. It continues to trade within a sideways movement with a slight bearish bias. It is now pegged below the 38.20% Fib level on its way up.
Gold Price Fundamentals Overview
From a fundamental perspective, the yellow metal is trading at the back of a relatively busy period in the US market. On Thursday, the US initial jobless claims for the week ending August 14 missed the expectation of 925k with 1.106M claims. On the other hand, continuing claims for the preceding week beat 15M with 14.488M. The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey for August missed 21 with 17.2. Earlier in the week, Building Permits and Housing starts for July beat expectations.
On Friday, the preliminary Markit Manufacturing PMI for August beat the expectation of 51.9 with 53.6. The Services PMI also outperformed 51 with 54.8 while the PMI composite came in at 54.7 up from 50.3 from the previous period. On the other hand, existing home sales for July beat the expected (MoM) figure of 5.38M with 5.86M. The existing home sales change outperformed 14.7% with 24.7% (MoM).
Gold Price Technical Analysis (the 60-min Chart)
Technically, the gold price appears to be experiencing a slight short-term bearish pressure in the market sentiment. The price of the yellow metal appears to have recently bounced off the boundary to oversold levels of the 14-hour RSI. It remains pinned below the 38.20% Fib level.
The bulls will be targeting short-term profits at around 50% and 61.80% Fib levels at $1,969 and $1,999, respectively. On the other hand, the bears will target profits at around 23.60% Fib level at $1,912, or lower at $1,877.
Gold Price Technical Analysis (the Daily Chart)
In the daily chart, the XAU/USD appears to be trading within an ascending channel. This indicates a long-term bullish bias in the market sentiment. Gold has recently pulled back to move towards the trendline support. It has since returned to the normal trading zone of the 14-day RSI off overbought levels.
The bulls will target rebound profits at around $2,025, or higher at $2,077. On the other hand, the bears will look to pounce for long-term profits at around $1,860 or lower at $1,799.