Fundamental view:

The yellow metal struggled to find direction and fluctuated in a relatively tight range. Although the greenback continued to outperform its major rivals with the help of upbeat data releases. In the last week, While testifying before the US House Committee on Financial Services on the Federal Reserve’s response to the coronavirus crisis on Monday, FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated that the Fed is committed to using the full range of tools to support the economy. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told that he expected the Fed to start raising rates in 2020 while acknowledging that his economic forecasts had improved significantly. IHS Markit’s preliminary PMI reports released last week revealed economic activity both in the manufacturing and the services sectors continued to expand at a strong pace.               

The major economic events deciding the movement of the pair in the next week are CB Consumer Confidence Index at Mar 30, ADP Nonfarm Employment Change, EIA Crude Oil Stocks Change at Mar 31, Initial Jobless Claims, ISM Manufacturing PMI at April 01 and Nonfarm Payrolls at April 02 for US.

XAU/USD Weekly outlook:

Technical View:

Last week’s high was 0.57% lower than the previous week. Maintaining high at 1745.5 and low at 1721.6 showed a movement of 239 pips.

In the upcoming week we expect XAU/USD to show a bearish trend.  The Instrument is trading below the 200 Simple Moving Average and the MACD trades to the downside. A solid breakout below 1720.8 may open a clean path towards 1709.2 and may take a way down to 1696.9. Should 1744.7 prove to be unreliable resistance, the XAUUSD may raise upwards 1757.0 and 1768.6 respectively. In H4 chart inverted cup and handle pattern formation favors prospects of a bearish trend. Also to be noted shooting star formation exerts the expectation of downtrend for the pair.