Gold: Modestly changed to $1475 as markets turn cautious ahead of US NFP

Gold fails to extend the previous day’s recovery while trading near $1475/76 amid Friday’s Asian session. That said, the yellow metal registers failures to close beyond 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) for the third consecutive day. However, traders turn cautious ahead of the key catalysts and prefer waiting over taking trades off-late.

Despite the United States (US) President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to appease market players about the phase-one details, investors seem to lose interest in the headlines from the Trump administration. The reason could be found in recently contrasting statements, reducing odds of any deal and showing hardships in negotiations, from global media and China.

While trade pessimism could be considered helping the bullion’s latest pullback, the US dollar (USD) weakness is another reason that gets included in the list. The greenback keeps it on the back foot amid disappointing data indicating no major improvement in the world’s biggest economy. This also increases the fear of the headline jobs report to push the policymakers towards conveying the economic pessimism even if market forecasts are quite upbeat.

Furthermore, calls of the US President Trump’s impeachment, coupled with the geopolitical tension surrounding Iran and North Korea, should keep the safe-haven stronger.

Even so, the US 10-year treasury yields recovery latest losses by two basis points (bps) to 1.80% while S&P 500 Futures registers no change by the press time.

Looking forward, trade/political headlines could offer intermediate moves to the precious metal while major attention will be on the November month US employment data including the headline Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), Unemployment Rate and Average Hourly Earnings. Among them, the NFP is expected to rise to 180K from 128K prior while Unemployment Rate and Average Hourly Earnings could stay unchanged at 3.6% and 3.0% respectively.

Technical Analysis

In addition to a successful trade beyond 50-day EMA level of $1,477, buyers will look for entry beyond the monthly top close to $1,485 while aiming $1,500 mark. Alternatively, $1,463 and short-term rising support line around $1,455 can entertain sellers.