NEO price analysis: NEO/USD on recovery track, still below critical resistance of $7.80

• NEO has been recovering since October 16.
• The upside momentum needs to be stronger to take the price above $7,80.

NEO, currently the 21st largest coin with the total market value of $527 million, has gained about 1.7% in recent 24 hours to trade at $7.5 at the time of writing. Since the beginning of Tuesday, NEO/USD has gained about 1%. The coin has returned to the levels registered at the beginning of the year,. The annual losses exceed 50%.

Notably, NEO celebrated its third birthday on October 17. This day in 2016 NEO’s MainNet was launched into operation.

“October 17th 2019 marked the third anniversary of the  [$NEO](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24NEO&src=cashtag_click)  MainNet launch. Multiples activities were held to commemorate, such as an open letter to the community, a brand revamp, new website launch, twitter campaign, and a mini-documentary by NNT,” the team wrote on Twitter.

NEO/USD, the technical picture

Looking technically, NEO/USD bottomed at $6.82 on October 16 and has been climbing slowly ever since.  From the longer-term point of view, it is still below $7.80, the upper boundary of the recent range. Once it is out of the way, the upside is likely to gain traction with the next focus on  psychological $8.00, closely followed by SMA50 (Simple Moving Average) daily at $8.13.  

On the downside, SMA50 one hour creates initial support on approach to $7.30. It is followed by SMA100 and SMA200 at $7.25. A move below this area will allow for an extended sell-off towards psychological $7.00 and $6.70,  the lowest level since September 25.

NEO/USD, one-hour chart