Gold holds on to recovery gains amid trade/political pessimism

• Gold respects recent challenges to market sentiment.
• Trade optimism fades, Middle East tension increases.
• Equities, bonds also register modest changes.

In addition to bouncing off multi-month-old rising trend-line, Gold gains support form recently downbeat trade/political headlines while taking the bids to $1,500 during Friday’s Asian session.

The news/reports concerning Saudi-led alliance’s military strikes in Yemen and challenges to the US-China trade optimism, as ascertained from the US diplomats’ comments, seem to attract the yellow metal buyers.

Though, bulls are still catching a breath after a slew of busy sessions in a few days as no major data/even is up for publishing during early Friday. It should also be noted that S&P 500 Futures and MSCI’s Asia Pacific Index (ex-Japan) join the US 10-year Treasury yields while portraying the lack of sentiment.

It’s worth mentioning that the pessimism spread through Germany’s monthly report, the White House Adviser Peter Navarro and the ex-IMF (International Monetary Fund) Chief Christine Lagarde have also been considered by safe-haven. Furthermore, China again stopped the US intervention in the Hong Kong issue and reignited fears of another trade war ahead of the key October meeting.

Given the lack of major data/events, investors will keep an eye over the trade/political headlines for fresh direction.

Technical Analysis

FXStreet Analyst Ross J Burland spots the bulls’ struggle while saying:

"The bearish pin bar and the 4-HR 200 moving average is keeping the bulls in check with a series of failing bullish attempts higher in the 1,500s.  A 50% mean reversion of the late June swing lows to recent highs around 1470 guards the 19 July swing highs at 1,452.93. On the upside, the  4-HR 200 MA is located at 1,510 and is guarding 1,550 level is still the target to breach which then opens prospects for 1,590 as the 127.2% Fibo target area."