Gold Prices Trade in a Choppy Manner

The gold prices have been trading in a choppy manner over the last 24 hours as the strength of the dollar has been waxing and waning during this period with no specific direction. While the dollar was the strongest currency until late night yesterday, it has been on the backfoot since the morning and this has led to a period where the gold prices went down on dollar strength and have since recovered on the weakness of the dollar. The dollar has been steady overall as the market continues to look forward to a rate hike from the Fed in December. Though the Fed has not given any firm indication in that regard and the incoming data from the US, so far, has not supported such a move, the market is still pretty much convinced that this is going to happen and that is why we are seeing the dollar pretty much steady.

Gold Prices Likely to Be Under Pressure

Yesterday, the focus was on the tax reform bill which is going through its final stages but there were reports late in the US session which said that the tax plan could be delayed by a year which weakened the dollar by a bit. The gold prices continue to consolidate below the 1280 region where it trades as of this writing with no specific direction as yet. As we have been saying for a few weeks now, the overall direction continues to point downwards and we still believe that any bounce in the gold prices should be used as an opportunity to sell.

The oil prices also consolidated during the course of the day yesterday after rising by more than 5% over the last few days. The Saudi crisis seems to be abating with the King taking gradual control and though doubts continue to persist on how things are going to pan out in the short term, the oil market is a wait and watch mode. The oil prices now trade comfortably above the $55 region which would mean that the next target of the bulls should be the $60 region. There seem to be no signs of this bull run abating any time soon and hence the target of $60 should only be a formality.

Silver prices have also been choppy over the last 24 hours and this is likely to continue to be so in the short term. The dollar has been steady at best and hence this is adding a bit of pressure on the silver prices for now.