Gold remains on the defensive above the psychological level of $2,500. However, the price decline is tempered by rising expectations of more aggressive monetary easing by the Federal Reserve. Data released on Wednesday showed that job growth in the U.S. up to March of the previous year was weaker than initially expected. Moreover, the July FOMC meeting minutes revealed that several officials were inclined toward an immediate rate cut. Alongside ongoing geopolitical risks, this continues to support the precious metal, suggesting caution before positioning for any significant corrective decline.
Traders may also prefer to wait for the speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday before opening new positions. Meanwhile, U.S. economic news set to be released today could create short-term trading opportunities for gold later in the North American session.
From a technical perspective, the price movement within the range observed since the beginning of this week can be seen as a bullish consolidation phase before the next upward move. Furthermore, oscillators on the daily chart remain in positive territory and are still far from overbought levels, confirming a short-term constructive outlook. Consequently, a return to retesting the all-time high reached on Tuesday seems like a likely possibility. Some subsequent buying could be seen as a new trigger for bulls, supporting the continuation of the recent well-established upward trend.
On the other hand, any significant pullback could continue to attract buyers near the round level of $2,500. This should help limit the price decline near the $2,480 resistance level. A decisive break below this level could trigger technical selling, dragging the XAU/USD pair down to the horizontal support at $2,455 on the way to $2,430. The corrective decline could potentially extend further to the 50-day simple moving average (SMA), currently near the $2,400 level.
