Gold surrenders gains as Hormuz ship ban lifts yields

XAU/USD trades near $4,240 on Thursday, slightly off the $4,304 intraday high.
WTI trades higher as Tehran cautions that a shipping framework would not automatically reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Friday's NFP report.

Agustin Wazne FXStreet

Gold (XAU/USD) has given up the whole of Thursday's advance, trading near $4,240 after touching $4,304 earlier in the session. The reversal came as the reported terms of the Strait of Hormuz arrangement worked their way through the rates market, lifting US Treasury yields and reviving bets on a Federal Reserve (Fed) hike. The US Dollar (USD) turned with them, and the US Dollar Index (DXY) now trades up 0.26% near the 100.00 level.

That is the opposite of the morning's setup, and the mechanism is worth following. Fars reported that vessels linked to the United States (US), Israel, and other countries Tehran considers hostile would be barred from the waterway under the proposed deal. Crude rose on the supply threat, and higher energy prices feed straight into the inflation problem the Fed is already worried about. Rising yields raise the cost of holding a non-yielding asset, so the same headline that would normally lift Gold ended up capping it.

Friday's Nonfarm Payrolls report is the immediate hurdle as a Reuters survey points to an 80K gain in July after June's 57K, with the Unemployment Rate steady at 4.2%.

Technical Analysis:

On the 4-hour chart, XAU/USD trades at $4,253, maintaining a bullish near-term bias as price holds above both the 20-period Simple Moving Average (SMA) at $4,146 and the 100-period SMA at $4,073. The cluster of horizontal supports at $4,248 and $4,232 sits just beneath the market, reinforcing the constructive structure, while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) at 72 signals overbought conditions that could temper immediate upside momentum.

On the topside, initial resistance appears at $4,276, ahead of a stronger barrier at $4,304, where fresh buying would be needed to extend the rally. On the downside, the first layer of support is seen at $4,248, followed by $4,232, with the 20-period SMA at $4,146 and the 100-period SMA at $4,074 providing deeper structural demand if a corrective pullback unfolds.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Author

Agustin Wazne

FXStreet

Agustin Wazne joined FXStreet as a Junior News Editor, focusing on Commodities and covering Majors.

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