Gold Price Forecast: XAU/USD seems vulnerable near three-week low amid rising USD, bond yields

Gold prolongs this week's bearish trend for the fifth successive day and drops to a three-week low on Friday. The XAU/USD remains depressed through the early North American session and is currently placed near the $1,750 level, down nearly 0.40% for the day.

Worries about a global economic downturn triggered a fresh wave of the global risk-aversion trade on the last day of the week. This is evident from a generally weaker tone around the equity markets, which turns out to be a key factor that offers some support to the safe-haven precious metal. That said, an extension of the recent US dollar rally keeps a lid on the attempted intraday recovery for the dollar-denominated gold.

In fact, the USD Index (DXY), which tracks the greenback's performance against a basket of currencies, shot to a one-month high amid hawkish Fed expectations. The FOMC minutes released on Wednesday indicated that policymakers remain committed to raising interest rates to tame inflation. Furthermore, the recent comments by several Fed officials suggested that the US central bank would stick to its policy tightening path.

Adding to this, the incoming better-than-expected US macroeconomic data reaffirmed markets, which, in turn, leads to a further rise in the US Treasury bond yields. In fact, the yield on the benchmark 10-year US government bond climbs back closer to the 3.0% threshold. This, in turn, continues to underpin the greenback and further contributes to driving flows away from the non-yielding yellow metal, favouring bearish traders.

Even from a technical perspective, the recent repeated failures near the $1,800 mark and a subsequent fall below the previous monthly low, around the $1,754 area adds credence to the negative outlook. This, in turn, suggest that the path of least resistance for gold is to the downside. Nevertheless, the metal remains on track to register heavy weekly losses and snap a four-week winning streak to over a one-month high.

Technical levels to watch