Gold steady above $1200 mark as investors await Fed

Gold extended previous session's reversal move from 100-day SMA and dropped back to the key $1200 psychological mark before recovering early losses to currently trade absolutely flat from yesterday’s closing level, around $1203-04 region.

A fresh wave of up-move in the US treasury bond yields, against the backdrop of an imminent Fed rate-hike action on Wednesday, was seen weighing on the non-yielding precious metal. This coupled with renewed US Dollar demand further collaborated to the mildly bearish sentiment surrounding dollar-denominated commodities, including gold.

Meanwhile, growing political uncertainty in Europe, especially ahead of Wednesday's elections in the Netherlands, and mildly negative sentiment surrounding European equity markets is lending support to traditional safe-haven assets and helping the metal to hold just above the $1200 handle, and multi-week lows.

Investors, however, might refrain from carry large bets, heading into the key FOMC meeting, and thus, limits the possibilities of any sharp downslide on Tuesday. The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates but investors would look forward to the policymakers' updated economic projections in order to determine the next leg of directional move for the commodity.

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com notes, “Well Gold is back below 1204 so we have to assume that we are going lower towards the 1197/95 area once more... 60 min and 4 hrly charts still point lower...as do the weeklies....Just the dailies are showing small bullish tendencies...but you know...Gold stopping in front of 1212 is quite significant....and especially back below 1204...I think possibly a small buy in this 1197/95 area but and I mean BUT....we leave stops really right below trendline support at 1188 ...If we break this area then 1178 to 1173 would be looking a viable short term target....However I have to say that if Gold doesn't recover 2mrw then sadly I believe Gold is going to be trading a lot lower and possibly back to 1150...”

“To make Gold look a bit more sexy we have to trade and hold back above 1204....Only then can we make another run for the 1210/12 resistance....Any longs to be covered to here....we can go long above 1212 for 1218 and then possibly 1224/26...This scenario though today is not looking likely...”