Gold flat-lined near $1230 level, seems vulnerable

   “¢   Fails to capitalize on last week’s goodish rebound from YTD lows.
   “¢   Traders shrug USD selling bias and reviving safe-haven demand.  
   “¢   Fed rate hike prospects keep a lid on any meaningful up-move.

Gold struggled to build on last week’s goodish rebound from over one-year lows and seesawed between tepid gains/minor losses through the early European session on Monday.

Broad-based US Dollar sell-off, triggered by the US President Donald Trump’s discomfort over the recent strength, underpinned the dollar-denominated and prompted some short-covering move on Friday.

Trump also stepped up his rhetoric on the trade spat, saying that he was prepared to put tariffs on all $505 billion in Chinese goods imported to the US, and provided an additional boost to the precious metal’s safe-haven appeal.

Market participants, however, remain convinced that the Fed will stick to its plan to raise interest rates at least two more time in 2018. The same was evident from the US Treasury bond yields, with the benchmark 10-year yield holding around the three-week high level of 2.89% and now contributing towards capping any strong up-move for the non-yielding yellow metal.  

The commodity quickly reversed an Asian session spike to an intraday high level of $1235 and the price-action clearly seems to suggest that the near-term bearish pressure might still far from being over. Hence, any meaningful up-move might be looked upon as an opportunity to initiate some fresh bearish positions amid absent market moving economic releases.

Technical levels to watch

A subsequent weakness back below $1227 level is likely to accelerate the fall towards $1223-22 support area, which if broken will reinforce the bearish outlook and drag the metal back towards $1215 level en-route YTD low level of $1211.

On the flip side, momentum beyond session tops ($1235 area) is likely to confront fresh supply near the $1240 region, above which a fresh bout of short-covering could lift the commodity further towards $1247 strong horizontal resistance.