Gold technical analysis: Bulls trying to seize control near weekly tops, focus remains on FOMC

• Gold built on its recent steady climb and barring few knee-jerk reactions, the up-move has been along an ascending trend-channel formation on the 1-hourly chart.
• Currently placed around weekly tops, the precious metal now seemed struggling to extend the momentum further beyond a congestion zone near the $1430-33 region.

Meanwhile, the fact that the commodity has managed to hold above important intraday moving averages – 100 and 200-hour SMAs, coupled with bullish oscillators on hourly/daily charts support prospects for a further near-term appreciating move.

Traders, however, held back from placing any aggressive bets and preferred to wait on the sidelines ahead of the FOMC monetary policy decision, which will play an important role in determining the non-yielding yellow metal’s near-term direction.

A convincing break through the current resistance area, leading to a subsequent move beyond the $1437-38 horizontal resistance now seems to lift the commodity towards the $1445-46 intermediate resistance en-route multi-year tops.

On the flip side, any pullback now seems to find some support near the lower end of the ascending trend-channel, below which the metal is likely to accelerate the slide further towards $1413-11 horizontal support.

The momentum could further get extended towards challenging the key $1400 psychological mark before the commodity eventually drops to test its next major support near the $1386-83 region.

Gold 1-hourly chart