Gold stays below 2-week-old resistance-line despite trade/political pessimism

Gold prices fail to portray the recent risk-aversion wave as they remain below near-term resistance-line while taking rounds to $1,513 on early Monday.

Renewed geopolitical tension between Saudi Arabia and Yemen has been a major driving force for markets’ immediate risk sentiment off-late. Following a threat from Houthi rebels, Saudi Arabia has also flashed signals of war if an attack takes place whereas the US deployed additional forces in the Middle East as a measure being “defensive in nature’.

On the other hand, Chinese delegates’ early leave from the US, without visiting the US farms, got a negative signal relating to the recently conducted trade negotiations in Washington. However, the US and Chinese media have been trying to cover the issue in order to (likely) avoid the bad start of the talks in October.

Also favoring the risk-off could be the continuation of an easy monetary policy wave from the global central bankers amid a lack of positive headline statistics and on-going trade uncertainty.

While risk-off sentiment dragged the equities and the US Treasury yields down, the Japanese Yen (JPY) and Gold have to bear the burden of the US Dollar’s (USD) sturdiness. It should also be noted that Autumnal Equinox Day holiday in Japan and a lack of fresh signal during the early Asian session also restricts the safe-haven’s upside.

Looking forward, traders could keep an eye over the preliminary activity numbers from the Eurozone and the US while also following the trade/political headlines for further direction.

Technical Analysis

Unless breaking a short-term descending resistance-line, at $1,517, prices are less likely to aim for September 04 low near $1,534 and the monthly top close to $1,557. As a result, $1,500 and $1,480 remain in the sellers’ watch-list for now.