Daily Times

Gold price went 1.67 percent down on a week-on-week (WoW) basis internationally as geopolitical concerns centring on Russia kept the market volatile.

Gold futures closed the week on a bearish note in the international market at $1,925.60 per ounce from $1,958.40, shedding $32.80 on a week-on-week basis.

The price of 10 grams of 24-carat yellow metal in Pakistan, meanwhile, decreased by 0.62 percent (-Rs700) to Rs113,700 from Rs114,400 during the last week. A relatively lower decrease in the local gold price was due to the Pakistani rupee’s depreciation against the US dollar, which devalued by 1.27 percent last week and it also impacted local gold prices negatively.

Gold suffered heavy losses at the beginning of the week amid surging US treasury bond yields but managed to stage a rebound mid-week. However, with the dollar starting to gather strength ahead of the weekend, gold failed to extend its recovery and ended up posting weekly losses.

According to experts, the supply chain constraints are finally easing and interest rate hikes need to be adjusted upward. They said that the heightened uncertainty due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict was a source of risk for demand; however, risk flows dominated the markets amid renewed optimism for a diplomatic solution to the conflict and caused the safe-haven dollar to lose interest.

On Tuesday last, 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 defence announced that military activity in Kyiv and Chernihiv will be scaled down significantly in order to create conditions for further dialogue.

The benchmark 10-year US treasury bond yield regained its traction on Friday and retraced the majority of its weekly decline, making it difficult for gold to build on its recovery gains. On the other hand, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics announced that Nonfarm Payrolls in March rose by 431,000, compared to analysts’ estimate of 490,000. More importantly, the underlying details of the jobs report revealed that wage inflation, as measured by average hourly earnings, climbed to 5.6% on a yearly basis from 5.2%.

From a technical perspective, gold continued to fluctuate between the 20-day and 50-day Simple Moving Averages (SMAs). The Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicator on the daily chart is also moving sideways near 50, reflecting gold’s indecisiveness. Gold enjoys the first support at $1,920. With a daily close below that level, additional losses toward $1,900 (psychological level, 50-day SMA) and $1,890 could be witnessed.

On the upside, gold needs to rise above $1,950 (20-day SMA) and start using that level as support in order to target $1,970 (static level).