Gold pauses two-day winning streak as pre-NFP trade bleak dominates

• Gold prices pay a little heed to the latest catalysts amid “wait and watch” mode.
• Coronavirus fears confront trade optimism, broad US dollar strength and upbeat data.
• The economic calendar will be in the spotlight.

Gold prices flash modestly weak signals while flashing $1,565.25 mark during the Asian session on Friday. The yellow metal has started showing a less reaction to the recent catalysts amid pre-NFP trade bleak. However, upcoming data from China and coronavirus updates could offer intermediate moves.

Even if the Coronavirus outbreak continues, the market’s trade sentiment remains sluggish off-late. The latest figures from China’s Health Ministry signal 31,161 infected people (versus 28,081 on Thursday) whereas the death toll reached 636 due to the fatal disease.

Also in the list were the RBA Governor’s optimism surrounding the Aussie economy and China’s readiness to offer tariff relief to the US goods despite coronavirus impact on the economy.

On Thursday, data from the US continued to push markets towards a strong employment report for January, up for publishing at 13:30 GMT. However, traders remain cautious as the cost of disappointment from the data will be high.

While portraying the risk-tone the US 10-year treasury yields remain mostly unchanged around 1.644% whereas the S&P 500 Futures also mark the sluggish pattern as taking rounds to 3,350.

China’s January month trade balance will show the partial impact of coronavirus on the world’s second-largest economy and could harm the market sentiment in case of a disappointment. Forecasts suggest the headlines Trade Balance soften to $38.64B versus upwardly revised $47.21B prior.

Concerning the US employment report for January, markets anticipate 160K figures of the headline Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) versus 145K prior. However, analysts at TD Securities depend upon the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ signal while saying, “the BLS has already indicated that payrolls gains will be revised down by about 40K per month in the year through March 2019, but we expect some downward revisions to more recent data as well.”

Technical Analysis

Unless trading successfully beyond $1,570, prices are less likely to revisit $1,600 in the near-term.