Gold Prices Continue to Range Near the Top

Gold prices continued to trade near the highs of its range and it looks as though it might be threatening another breakout pretty soon. The prices trade in the 1295 region as of this writing and it has been seen many times in the past that the region between 1295 and 1300 has been the place that the breakouts have failed in a periodic manner. Yesterday, the dollar continued to strengthen across the board as the news of the tax reform bill enjoying a smooth passage so far has been dominating the markets and helped to support the dollar. But this seems to have little impact on the gold prices so far as the prices have been buoyed by the increase in the risk that we have been seeing. Late yesterday night/today morning, we got news of a another missile launch by North Korea and this time, the missile was one of the biggest and the most capable as well.

Gold Looks to Breakout

This has increased the risk globally and though the US has chosen to ignore it once again, it has helped the gold prices to move higher gradually and this is also one of the reasons why we are finding the prices near the highs of the range and threatening a breakout in due course of time. It remains to be seen whether this would be enough to bring about the breakout or whether the dollar strength would begin to dominate once again and push the gold prices back into range.

Oil prices have now begun to consolidating after a period of correction. The OPEC meeting is going on as scheduled today and the oil market will be watching the outcome of this meeting very closely. There are conflicting reports on whether they would continue the production cut in 2018 or not and this is likely to be a key factor that would determine whether the oil prices would remain buoyant or not. Any decision to discontinue the production cut is likely to lead to another correction towards the $55 region and lower in the short term.

Silver prices have moved lower over the last day or so and as we have been mentioning in our forecasts, it has continued to trade in a weak manner over the last week or so and has not shared the love that the gold market seems to be getting.