Gold Price News and Forecast: XAU/USD holds onto Friday’s recovery gains

FXStreet Team FXStreet

Gold Price Forecast: XAU/USD bulls insist but not out of the woods yet

Despite a green day last Friday, Gold (XAU/USD) fell for the second straight week and held onto the critical $1850 support. Fresh calls for US fiscal stimulus kept the gold buyers alive, although the further upside remained elusive amid vaccine progress. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday hinted that the stimulus talks would continue just a day after halting Fed’s emergency lending program. The US dollar suffered alongside stocks, in the face of the Fed-Treasury clash, spiking COVID-19 cases and fresh lockdowns in the US cities, which lifted the sentiment around gold.

Gold Price Analysis: XAU/USD nears 200-hour SMA

Gold is currently trading near $1,872 per ounce, having nearly tested the 200-hour Simple Moving Average (SMA) of $1,876 a few minutes before press time. The buyers failed to establish a foothold above that average on Friday.

Despite the latest bounce from the long-held support of $1,850, the immediate bias remains neutral. That's because the hourly chart descending trendline is still intact. A break above that diagonal resistance would open the doors to $1,900.

AUD/USD stabilizes near 0.7100 as the post-Fed USD rally pauses

AUD/USD consolidates the previous day's losses near 0.7100 in the Asian session on Thursday as the US Dollar pauses its hawkish Fed-inspired rally to its highest level since late July. However, RBA rate-hike bets and hopes for US-Iran diplomatic efforts lift risk sentiment and support the risk-sensitive Australian Dollar and the major.

USD/JPY reverses a dip below 156.00 as focus shifts to BoJ

USD/JPY is reversing a brief dip below 156.00 in the Asian session on Thursday, looking to snap a three-day winning streak to a nearly two-week top set the previous day. The US Dollar pauses following the post-Fed rally to seven-week highs, while a more hawkish repricing of the BoJ's policy normalization path supports the Japanese Yen. This keeps the pair's upside limited, with the focus now shifting to the BoJ policy decision due on Friday.

Gold flirts with $4,300 on the post-Fed road to recovery

Gold flirts with the $4,300 level in the Asian session on Thursday, reversing much of the previous day's losses to a six-week low as the US Dollar eases from its highest level since late July. Meanwhile, oil-driven inflation fears ease amid hopes of US-Iran diplomacy, weighing on US Treasury yields while lifting yieldless Gold.

What happens to Ethereum price now that the Clarity Act has failed

Ethereum and the wider crypto market felt the impact of the Clarity Act failing to clear the Senate. Analysts had touted the bill as a major tailwind for the second-largest cryptocurrency. Expectations that its advance would trigger a rally have now been reset. The setback has left its mark on ETH.

The Fed rate hike: What happens now?

The dust has settled on tonight’s Fed meeting and the market reaction is clear: the Fed’s signal that there could be a series of rate hikes has spooked financial markets. Bonds sold off at the short end of the Treasury curve and US stocks also fell, led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which slipped more than 1% on Wednesday night.

How Japan became the World's Banker and why that era may be ending

Japan's ultra-low interest rates helped finance trillions of dollars in global investments for more than a decade, making the Japanese Yen one of the world’s cheapest sources of funding. With the Bank of Japan expected to tighten policy again this week, that advantage may be entering a new phase. While most major economies raised interest rates, Japan remained the world's outlier.