• Gold price rises for the third consecutive day to refresh weekly top.
• Sluggish yields, hopes of less-hawkish central bankers exert downside pressure on DXY.
• China’s status as the key XAU/USD consumer favors the metal buyers in times of stimulus.

Gold price (XAU/USD) prints a three-day uptrend while renewing the weekly high around $1,760 heading into Thursday’s European session. In doing so, the precious metal cheers softer US dollar, as well as stimulus news from China, as traders await the interest rate guidance from the Jackson Hole Symposium.

China’s Cabinet, State Council, outlined a 19-point policy package while announcing economic stimulus measures worth CNY1 trillion ($146 billion) to stimulate growth affected by covid lockdowns and property market crisis, per Bloomberg. Additionally, Li Zhong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said on Thursday that China will focus on expanding jobs and promote fiscal, monetary and industrial policies to support job market stabilization.

Given the dragon nation’s status as one of the world’s biggest XAU/USD users, positive news from China often favors the gold buyers.

On the other hand, mixed US data and recently sluggish US Treasury yields also underpin the commodity’s upside momentum. That said, the impending economic slowdown concerns push markets towards hoping for an absence of the major hawkish announcement from Fed Chair Jerome Powell during Friday’s speech. Even so, Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a 61% chance that the Fed will hike rates by another 75 basis points (bps) at its September meeting, and a 39% probability of a 50 basis points increase, per Reuters.

Against this backdrop, the market sentiment improved and exerted downside pressure on the US Dollar. That said, the US 10-year Treasury yields rose the most in a week the previous day while refreshing a two-month high to around 3.10%. However, mixed concerns seem to have probed the US bond sellers of late. Moving on, the Wall Street benchmarks printed mild gains, which in turn helped S&P 500 Futures to remain mildly bid at around 4,150 at the latest.

For the intraday directions, the second version of the US Q2 GDP will join the US Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) for the said period will be important. However, major attention will be given to Fed Chair Powell’s showdown on Friday.

Technical analysis

Gold price remains firmer after crossing the downward sloping trend line from August 12, as well as the 200-SMA. The upside momentum also takes clues from the bullish MACD signals and upbeat RSI, not overbought.

It’s worth noting, however, that a three-week-old horizontal resistance area near $1,770-72 restricts short-term XAU/USD upside ahead of directing the bulls towards the monthly peak of $1,808.

Meanwhile, a convergence of the 200-SMA and the weekly support line, close to $1,749, restricts short-term declines of the yellow metal.

Following that, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of late July to early August upside, near $1,730, appears the last defense of the gold buyers.

Gold: Four-hour chart

Trend: Further upside expected