During a strong bullish retracement, the XAU/USD gold price is still moving in an upward path.
- Gains reached the $1865 resistance level and the highest price of the yellow metal since mid-June 2022.
- It settled around the $1850 level at the time of writing.
- Yesterday's jump moved the technical indicators towards overbought levels, and the XAU/USD gold price may be exposed to profit-taking sales from the $1865 and $1877 resistance levels.
- Gold price is still stable above the psychological resistance of $1800 an ounce and supportive of bulls controlling the trend.
The return of the XAU/USD gold price movement towards the support levels 1818 and 1775 dollars will be important to change the current bullish outlook. The price of gold may remain in its current range until the reaction from the announcement of the content of the minutes of the last meeting of the US Federal Reserve Bank, and then the US job numbers.
Economic Outlook
US job openings remained elevated in November, highlighting how a flexible labor market is likely to keep the Federal Reserve tilted toward more restrictive policy in the coming months. According to the advertiser, the number of available jobs decreased to 10.46 million from 10.51 million in the previous month, the Labor Department's Job Opportunities and Employment Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed on Wednesday. The number was higher than all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
The numbers point to a still tight US job market, with employers' demand for workers far outstripping supply. Overall employment while moderating, remains flat and layoffs are low. The persistent imbalance continues to put upward pressure on wages and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has highlighted it as key to the inflation trajectory.
The high number of opportunities coupled with the persistently strong advance in the payroll is likely to reinforce expectations that the Fed will keep US interest rates constrained for some time to quell inflation and ensure price growth is on a sustainable downward trend. Investors will analyze the minutes of the December meeting of policy makers, to help shed light on the central bank's outlook. Separate data showed manufacturing activity in the US contracted for the second month in December, which helped ease price pressures. Employment opportunities have increased in the professional and commercial service sectors as well as manufacturing. Meanwhile, vacancies decreased in the finance, insurance and federal government.
The ratio of jobs available to the unemployed remained elevated at 1.7, little changed from October. It was about 1.2 before the pandemic. Fed officials are watching this ratio closely and have cited the rising number of job vacancies as a reason why the central bank should be able to cool the labor market - and thus inflation - without a subsequent rise in unemployment. However, many economists expect that the Fed's tightening will push the US economy into recession over the next year and increase unemployment somewhat.
The data precedes Friday's monthly US jobs report, which is currently expected to show employers added 200,000 payrolls in December. Economists expect the unemployment rate to stabilize at 3.7% and average hourly earnings to decline somewhat.
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