Futures contracts for gold prices fluctuated in a narrow range that tends to decline during the Asian session, to witness its rebound from its lowest since the ninth of December, overlooking the decline of the dollar index to its lowest since April 20, 2018 according to the inverse relationship on the cusp of developments and expected economic data today Thursday by the US economy, the world's largest economy, and amid US lawmakers' approval to stimulate new fiscal stimulus.
At exactly 4:58 am GMT, the futures contract for gold prices for next February delivery decreased 0.02% to trade at $ 1,868.00 per ounce compared to the opening at $ 1,868.40 per ounce, knowing that the contracts started the session on a rising price gap after yesterday's trading was concluded. At $ 1,859.10 per ounce, while the US dollar index fell 0.14% to 90.13 compared to an opening at 90.26.
Investors are currently waiting for the US economy to see the release of the aid claims index reading for the past week on December 12th, which may reflect a decrease of 36 thousand requests to 817 thousand applications compared to 853 thousand applications in the previous reading, and the reading of continuous aid requests for the week may also appear. Last month, on the fifth of this month, there was a decrease of 159 thousand requests to 5,598 thousand applications compared to 5,757 thousand applications.
This comes in conjunction with the disclosure of housing market data, with the release of the housing starts index and the building permit index reading, and amid expectations that the building permits reading will reflect an increase to about 1.55 million permits, compared to about 1.54 million permits in October. Home start-ups were stable at around 1.53 million homes last November.
This also comes in conjunction with the disclosure by the largest industrial country in the world of industrial sector data, with the release of the Philadelphia Industrial Index reading, which may reflect a contraction of the expansion to a value of 20.1 compared to 26.3 in November. Otherwise, we followed a short while ago the end of the meeting. The Federal Open Market Committee December 15-16, during which interest rates were kept at an all-time low between zero and 0.25%.
On Wednesday, we followed up on the Fed’s monetary policy-makers’s pledge to keep interest on federal funds zero and to move forward with a bond-buying program estimated at $ 120 billion a month at least until employment targets are met and price stability is achieved, with the disclosure of FOMC’s expectations for rates Growth, inflation and unemployment as well as the future of interest rates for the next three years.
In the same context, the Fed’s forecast for the growth rate of the largest economy in the world during the next year 2021 has been raised to 4.2% compared to the previous quarterly estimates of 4% growth and 3.2% growth from 3.0% in 2022, and the Federal Open Market Committee believes that unemployment rates may reach 6.7% by the end of 2020 compared to September's forecast of 7.6%, and it may decline to 5% in 2021 compared to previous estimates of 5.5%.
We would like to point out that Fed Governor Jerome Powell noted yesterday during his press conference after the Fed’s meeting ended, that the need for financial stimulus is "very, very strong," and came amid the market's aspiration for US lawmakers to approve a new stimulus package to counter the negative repercussions of the severity of the outbreak The second wave of Corona virus in recent times.
Technical analysis
Gold price trading rebounded strongly after retesting the 1850.00 level yesterday, to gradually approach our first expected positive target at 1875.00, and the price moves within the bullish intraday channel that appears on the image, which supports the chances of surpassing the aforementioned level to achieve more positive targets that extend to 1902.00 Then 1928.60.
Therefore, we will continue suggesting the bullish trend for the upcoming period, provided that the price maintains its stability above 1856.00 and most importantly above 1833.00.
The expected trading range for today is between 1850.00 support and 1890.00 resistance
The expected general trend for today: Bullish