The overall sentiment is bullish for gold next week with the U.S. dollar, safe-haven demand, and heightened volatility selected as the top three triggers that could push the yellow metal higher in the short term.
The COVID-19 outbreak is not peaking any time soon as the number of cases worldwide has breached one million, with more than 58,000 deaths. The U.S. remains the country with the most infected — more than 266,000 cases and more than 6,800 deaths.
Investors have faced more negative data this week — the U.S. weekly jobless claims surged to a record 6.65 million and the unemployment report saw nonfarm payrolls falling 701,000 in March, marking first decline since September 2010.
Economists say this is just the beginning, expecting things to get much worse before they get better. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned of the unemployment rate rising to 20% without any action to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
“The impacts of the lockdowns in various places if starting to be felt. Gold, as predictably, has responded by going higher. We are now above $1,600.
Next week, Melek sees gold’s upper level at $1,640 an ounce and lower level at $1,550.
Butler projects a much more volatile week ahead with the trading range varying between $1,800 and $1,500. “Quite volatile time in the weeks ahead. The $1,600 level is pretty key. It will be interesting to see if we get sustained move above that in the next week or so,” he said. “We could see gold trade up to $1,800 and then back down to $1,500. I think it is going to move on sentiment more than the macros.”
“The 36-month rate of change in the ratio between gold and the S&P 500 has provided a pretty good signal in this regard. In the past, when it has crossed above the zero line it has been a good buy signal for gold and good sell signal for stocks,” he said