Chart of the week: Gold holds weekly support, eyes a 38.2% Fibo retracement

The return of risk appetite was adverse to gold prices, suffering a flight to cash to pay-up for margin calls mid-week. On Friday, the nail in the coffin came from US President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency and allowing more than $40 billion of FEMA funds to deal with the COVID crisis.

The move sent stocks much higher and US treasuries lower, pressuring yields and the US higher, subsequently taking down gold prices to a weekly support line. Gold reverted to the levels seen during the last bout of liquidity selling in late February, around $1,560/oz and then dropped all the way to a low of $1,504.34/oz (just above the 200-DMA, $1,497) as investors sold winners to generate liquidity and cover losses.

4-HR chart

"While these times of chaos can induce that kind of liquidity selling, the continued downward pressure on real interest rates, and the asymmetric nature of central bank reaction functions, offer strong fundamental support and suggests the dips will be bought by the investment community," analysts at TD Securities argue. 

In such a scenario, the market is moving towards liquidity and the prior area of high volume was through a 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level to $1,588 volume point of control. This is a level that also correlates to the late Jan and early Feb highs. 

Weekly chart

For the week ahead we have the Federal Reserve interest rate decision. A move towards the 0 bound is likely going to be a weight on the US dollar which in turn should enable gold prices to lead higher. However, below the weekly support and 200-DMA, 1450 would be back in the picture.