Fundamental view:

Gold traded low against the US dollar during the trading course of the week. US NFP report and the Optimism on ceasefire between Russia-Ukraine were the major catalysts which weighed on the yellow metal. Risk on market sentiment dominated the markets amidst renewed optimism for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict which did not favor the safe haven gold. Following Tuesday’s talks, a Ukrainian negotiator said that they made enough progress to plan a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, Russia’s ministry of defense announced that military activity in Kyiv and Chernihiv will be scaled down significantly in order to create conditions for further dialogue.

US March’s Nonfarm Payrolls report came at 431K jobs added, more than the 80K foreseen by economists. Thus market perceived it as a solid report. Further, the Unemployment rate lowered from 3.8% YoY in February to 3.6% in March and beat the 3.7% expected. That keeps the Fed on track for aggressive monetary policy, which favored the greenback.

The major economic events deciding the movement of the pair in the next week are ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI, Fed Governor Brainard Speech at Apr 05, EIA Crude Oil Stocks Change, FOMC Minutes at Apr 06, Initial Jobless Claims at Apr 07 and WASDE Report at Apr 08 for US.

XAU/USD Weekly outlook:

Technical View:

Last week’s high was 0.36% lower than the previous week. Maintaining high at 1959.2 and low at 1889.8 showed a movement of 694 pips.

In the upcoming week we expect XAU/USD to show a bullish trend. The Instrument is trading below the 200 Simple Moving Average and the MACD trades to nearly neutral. A solid breakout above 1959.4 may open a clean path towards 1994.0 and may take a way up to 2028.8. Should 1890.0 prove to be unreliable support, the XAUUSD may sink downwards 1855.2 and 1820.6 respectively. In H4 chart bullish butterfly pattern favors prospects of a bullish trend. Also to be noted hammer formation exerts the expectation of uptrend for the pair.