Precious Metals Range Bound As Investors Await Fresh Cues before Placing New Bets

Gold managed to make small gains in Asian trade on Friday after declining to a 19-month low in the previous session, but the metal remained on track for its biggest weekly decline since mid-2017. Spot gold XAUUSD is trading at $1174.99 up 0.07% on the day after touching an intra-day high of $1179.34, while US Gold futures GCcv1 is trading at $1181.30 an ounce down 0.22% on the day as of writing this article. Spot gold saw 2.9% decrease in value during this week’s trading session and is on its sixth consecutive weekly decline. It hit its lowest since January 2017 at $1159.96 on Thursday on some aggressive stop-loss selling. However a low gold price has attracted attention of both investors and short term traders alike which has resulted in gold gaining strong support around $1159 price handle. Investors now await fresh cues before placing new bets as traders made most out of USD’s sell of in Thursday’s trading session leaving Friday with a lack of trigger for breakout on either side.

Gains in Precious Metals Slow Down as Market Made The Most of USD Sell off on Thursday’s Market Session

A mild correction in the dollar, after the currency gained against most peers this week, also lent support to gold’s recovery. A weaker dollar makes greenback-denominated gold cheaper for holders of other currencies. The dollar edged further away from a 13-1/2-month high hit earlier this week, as risk aversion eased after China agreed to hold lower-level trade talks with Washington this month, offering hope that they might resolve an escalating tariff war. The dollar is still trending higher and is the safe-haven vehicle of choice, so gold is still under pressure from USD in long term. Silver market saw relatively less change in price on Asian session today as investors of silver made most out of Dollar’s sell of on Thursday with spot silver closing for Thursday seeing 1.51% increase in value. XAGUSD remains relatively mute today and is trading at $14.669 up 0.16% on the day as of writing this article.

Oil rose slightly as global markets steadied on Thursday, recovering some of the previous day’s 2 percent slide, though a weakening outlook for crude demand kept prices in check. Crude oil futures were largely stable during mid-morning trade in Asia Friday as market participants digested earlier data from various reporting agencies and looked ahead for fresh cues, with trade and geopolitical tensions seen likely to remain in the spotlight. China’s vice commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, will lead a delegation traveling to the US later this month to discuss trade-related matters, post which current scenario of Chinese importers avoiding purchase of US Crude oil may change. Spot Crude oil WTIUSD is trading at $65.78/b up 0.18% on the day.