FX.co ★ XAU/USD, GOLD

Gold has clawed its way back toward $4,100 in early Asian trading on Monday, recovering part of the ground lost after Friday’s blockbuster US jobs report, and the rebound tells you something about how contested this market has become. The political backdrop is doing some of the work: Democrats now hold majorities in both chambers, and they are strongly opposed to President Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget, with a source indicating they may approve only about $1 trillion because authorising more could be read as endorsing continued funding for the Iran war. That standoff has injected fresh uncertainty into the fiscal and geopolitical outlook, and while the logic isn’t linear, less war funding could mean less safe-haven demand; markets have treated the political friction as modestly supportive for bullion. But the macro side is pulling hard in the opposite direction. Friday’s nonfarm payrolls, as tracked on ************, printed 165,000 against a 65,000 consensus, with September revised up from 29,000 to 60,000 and the unemployment rate falling to 4.1% from 4.2%. That is a labour market with real momentum, and it keeps the Federal Reserve on a higher-for-longer path. The CME FedWatch tool now shows December hike odds at roughly 79.6%, up from 72.8% before the release, and higher rates raise the opportunity cost of holding an asset that pays no income. Independent trader Tai Wong summed up the session neatly: gold gapped lower on a strong, broad-based employment report but is now attempting to recover, calling it a litmus test for this week’s rally. OCBC’s team adds useful nuance, noting gold briefly cleared $4,140, a two-week high, overnight before giving back those gains as oil rebounded and the dollar stabilised, even though softer Treasury yields continue to offer underlying support. They flag the intensifying selloff in AI and semiconductor stocks as a reason for short-term caution, warning that broader deleveraging could force liquidity-driven selling in gold as investors scramble for cash. Still, they find it encouraging that bullion has shown relative resilience despite the equity rout, suggesting that after the recent pullback and a reduction in speculative positioning, gold may be gradually regaining some safe-haven appeal. The extent to which it holds that resilience if stock market weakness persists will be the key test, with Tuesday’s US CPI the next major hurdle and oil prices still a significant driver of inflation and rate expectations.

Gold at $4,115 is sitting exactly on its H4 200-period SMA, which is also $4,115, a detail that matters more than any other level on the chart right now. Because price and that average are touching, the pair is effectively balanced on a pivot rather than trending with conviction. Read each average separately: the H4 200-period at $4,115 is the immediate decision point; a sustained move above it would tilt the near-term bias higher, while slipping below would hand momentum back to sellers. The H1 50-period SMA at $4,090 sits roughly $25 beneath price and acts as the first dynamic floor, close enough that a routine pullback would test it almost immediately. Beneath that, the H4 50-period SMA at $4,015 and the H1 200-period SMA at $4,014 converge within a dollar of each other, and that proximity turns them into a reinforced support shelf rather than two separate lines; when two timeframes settle that tightly, the market tends to defend the zone collectively. There is no average overhead beyond the H4 200 at price, which means resistance above is defined entirely by fixed horizontal levels rather than dynamic ones. Horizontal support, read independently of those averages, begins at $4,090 where the H1 50-period sits, followed by $4,050, then the $4,014–$4,015 confluence, with $4,000, a psychologically significant round number, marking a deeper demand area and $3,950 beyond that. Horizontal resistance starts at $4,140, the overnight two-week high that capped the rally, then $4,180, followed by $4,220 and $4,250. Two paths are worth mapping. If buyers hold above $4,090 and force a close above $4,115, gold could push toward $4,140 and then $4,180, and a daily close above the recent high would confirm the recovery has legs. If $4,090 gives way, expect a slide toward $4,050 and then the $4,014–$4,015 shelf, and losing that would put $4,000 squarely in play. The bias is mildly constructive while price holds above the H1 50-period, but with roughly $25 to first support against $25 to first resistance, the near-term picture is genuinely two-sided and will likely be settled by Tuesday’s CPI print rather than by the chart alone.