• Gold price is auctioning in a $1,733.40-1,740.00 range ahead of US Durable Goods Orders.
• It is highly expected that Fed’s tone will remain slightly hawkish in Jackson Hole.
• The precious metal has picked bids around 61.8% Fibo retracement but still carries downside bias.

Gold price (XAU/USD) is displaying topsy-turvy moves in a narrow range of $1,733.40-1,740.00 in the early Tokyo session. The precious metal is dealing with volatility contraction after a firmer rebound from a low of $1,727.85 on Monday. The yellow metal is in a fix on mixed commentary over the extent of the hawkish tone to be delivered by Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Jerome Powell at Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.

After a scrutiny of the Fed minutes released last week, one cannot deny the fact that Fed policymakers agreed on the availability of little evidence, which clears that inflation pressures were subsiding and that it would take a considerable time for the situation to be resolved. In addition to that, the Fed is also committed to bringing price stability to the economy. And, in order to cater to the same, the spree of rate hiking should not be abandoned. It would be optimal to go for a 50 basis point (bps) interest rate hike to respect judgments.

But before that, the release of the US Durable Goods Orders is in focus, which is due on Wednesday.  As per the market consensus, the economic data is likely to decline to 0.5% from the prior release of 2%. In times, when the US economy has already displayed an unchanged US core Consumer Price Index (CPI), a decline in the economic data is not lucrative for the US dollar index (DXY).

Gold technical analysis

After hitting the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement (placed from July 21 low at $1,680.91 to August 10 high at $1,807.93) at $1,729.44, gold prices have rebounded firmly. The precious metal is continuously facing barricades from the 20-period Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $1,738.60, which favors the downside bias.

Also, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) (14) is oscillating in a bearish range of 20.00-40.00, which indicates more downside ahead.  

Gold hourly chart