Gold ignores US data, trades at fresh daily highs above $1,650

Durable Goods Orders in US declined less than expected in January.
US economy is seen expanding 2.1% in Q4 as expected.
10-year US T-bond yield slumps to fresh all-time lows near 1.26%.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

The XAU/USD pair continues to trade in the positive territory in the early trading hours of the American session as USD struggles to capitalize on the macroeconomic data releases from the US. As of writing, the pair was up 0.82% on the day at $1,653.

Risk aversion and USD weakness drive gold's action

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis' second estimate for the annualized GDP growth in the fourth quarter stayed unchanged at 2.1% as expected on Thursday. Additionally, the US Census Bureau reported that Durable Goods Orders in January declined by 0.2% to better analysts' estimate for a decrease of 1.5%.

Nevertheless, the relentless fall witnessed in the US Treasury bond yields didn't allow the greenback to find demand after the data. At the moment, the 10-year US T-bond yield is at a fresh all-time low of 1.26%, erasing 6.2% on a daily basis, and the US Dollar Index is down 0.56% at 98.59.

Meanwhile, reflecting the intense flight-to-safety, Wall Street's main indexes started the day deep in the negative territory to help the safe-haven gold preserve its strength. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite opened thge day more-than-2% lower.

Technical levels to watch for

XAU/USD

Overview
Today last price	1652.86
Today Daily Change	16.63
Today Daily Change %	1.02
Today daily open	1636.23

Trends
Daily SMA20	1592.16
Daily SMA50	1560.88
Daily SMA100	1519.4
Daily SMA200	1479.88

Levels
Previous Daily High	1655.06
Previous Daily Low	1624.96
Previous Weekly High	1649.32
Previous Weekly Low	1578.88
Previous Monthly High	1611.53
Previous Monthly Low	1517.1
Daily Fibonacci 38.2%	1643.56
Daily Fibonacci 61.8%	1636.46
Daily Pivot Point S1	1622.44
Daily Pivot Point S2	1608.65
Daily Pivot Point S3	1592.34
Daily Pivot Point R1	1652.54
Daily Pivot Point R2	1668.85
Daily Pivot Point R3	1682.64

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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