Gold prices have ticked up a little at the start of this week, after last week drifting lower in Dollar and Euro terms, holding steady in Swiss Francs and seeing small gains in Yen. Financial markets were focused on Jay Powell’s biannual testimony to Congress and the direction of bond yields. Powell clearly implied that there would be another two hikes this year, while Christine Lagarde at the ECB made it clear that, unlike the Fed, the ECB is not contemplating “pausing” as inflation is still too high and has been for too long. Intertest rate hikes came from the Bank of England, and the Swiss and Norwegian central banks.
China’s absence from markets exacerbated price weakness. There were five successive days of losses, the sharpest of which was the third one, when gold dropped from $1,957 to $1,930, with the move amplified by technical chart-related issues, with spot crossing below the ten-day and 20-day moving averages at $1,950. At the start of this week, after testing $1,920, spot is rising to challenge the resistance offered by the ten-day moving average at $1,940.