Gold starts the week pretty much unchanged from Friday’s closing levels with the precious metal changing hands at around $1,775/oz. Friday’s out-sized US NFP release (+528k new jobs vs. +250k expectations) sent gold tumbling and stopped the recent rally in the precious metal in its tracks. Gold has added over $100/oz. since July 21 as longer-dated US Treasury yields tumbled on growing recession fears. The closely watched UST2/10s yield spread is currently quoted around minus 40 basis points, a strong clue from the fixed income market that a recession is on the way in the US, whatever definition is used.

On Wednesday, the latest look at US inflation will be released for the month of July. Core inflation, y/y, is expected to nudge 0.2% higher to 6.1%, while headline inflation is seen 0.4% lower at 8.7%, according to market estimates.

The recent uptick in gold cannot disguise that the precious metal still remains in a downtrend of the March 2022 high. The series of lower highs and lower lows remain in place, while in the short-term the $1,795/oz. double top will be tough to break pre-US inflation. Short-term support is seen at $1,763/oz. and $1,753/oz.
 

Gold Daily Price Chart

(Click on image to enlarge)

Retail trader data show 81.02% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 4.27 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 0.17% higher than yesterday and 11.23% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 3.29% higher than yesterday and 17.82% higher from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests Gold prices may continue to fall. Yet traders are less net-long than yesterday and compared with last week. Recent changes in sentiment warn that the current Gold price trend may soon reverse higher despite the fact traders remain net-long.

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