Foreign exchange platform survey: retail investors are still bullish on the gold market, and Wall Street is increasingly divided

Forex Platform- Last week was the least dramatic week for the gold market this year, but as has been the case recently, it reserved some drama for market participants.

Spot gold, which opened last week at $2332.64, was little changed after falling to a daily low of $2311.50 around noon EST on Monday, with the exception of a low of $2307.38 on Tuesday morning.

The sideways movement was so steady and so small that by midday on Wednesday, which also coincided with the Juneteenth holiday in the United States, gold was trading in the mid-$ 20 range.

US traders returned to the market on Thursday morning to breathe new life into the market, pushing spot gold from $2,332 in early trading to $2,364.09 at 10:45am EST. Gold then traded in a fresh range of $2,350 to a weekly high of $2367.70 before falling sharply on Friday morning, with spot gold falling from $2363.71 at 9am EST to $2,317.70 after 1pm, closing at $2321.39 an ounce.

Kitco News' latest weekly gold survey shows that industry experts are hesitant about the near-term trend of gold, with differences widening significantly, while retail sentiment remains optimistic.

Marc Chandler, managing director of Bannockburn Global Forex, believes that geopolitical factors will drive gold prices higher in the coming week.

"US interest rates remain weak and political tensions in Europe [the European Union, France and the UK] remain high despite the fact that Mexico's president-elect has appointed some pro-market cabinet members," he said.

Mr. Chandler said the fall in US interest rates "appears to be at odds with the upward trend in crude oil prices, with August WTI futures hitting their highest level since late April".

"Gold is testing the $2,368 area and could reach $2,38- $2,390 if it rises further," he concluded.

"This is utter nonsense," wrote Mark Leibovit of VRMetals/ResourceLetter.

"Down," countered Adrian Day, president of Adrian Day Asset Management. "Gold is in a short-term trading range right now and could pull back next week after last week's gains. The market is on the sidelines, waiting for news of a resumption of official gold purchases in China and clarity on US inflation and employment conditions, which will inform any rate cuts."

Barchart.com senior market analyst Darin Newsom believes gold prices will move higher next week.

"A short-term uptrend in August gold has been seen on the daily contract chart, with August gold hitting a four-day high of $2,5379.50 on Thursday (Aug. 20)," Newsom wrote. "While there may be another slight sell-off interest early in the week, by Friday (June 28) the contract should move higher again."

Newsom said he expected a higher close in the coming week, which would constitute a three-week run on the weekly chart for August contracts against the medium-term downtrend. "At that point, based on Benjamin Franklin's fish metaphor (like the guest and the fish, the market starts to stink after three days/weeks/months of contrarian moves), I expect futures contracts to fall again," he said.

"The short-term upside target area is between $2,370 and $2,390, and the peripheral target is $2,410."

Analysts at CPM Group also predict that gold prices will rise in the next week or two.

"A series of political, economic and financial marekt issues could push gold prices higher during this period, even to $2,400, or even $2,450," they said. "A stronger dollar is unlikely to negatively impact gold: both the dollar and gold are expected to receive strong investor demand as they are safer currencies. Silver prices are expected to show strong momentum next week as the July Comex futures delivery period begins on May 28, which could help push gold prices higher."

"However, this increase is likely to be short-lived and will dissipate after the first week of July," analysts warned.

Last week, 14 Wall Street analysts participated in the Kitco News gold survey, and their responses showed the perfect balance of hesitation on the near-term outlook for precious metals. Five experts (36%) expect gold prices to rise in the coming week, while just as many analysts predict gold prices to fall. The remaining four (28% of the total) expect gold prices to trade sideways in the coming week.

Meanwhile, Kitco's online survey received a total of 209 votes, with ordinary investors remaining optimistic about gold. 114 retail traders (55%) expect gold prices to rise in the coming week. Another 38 (18%) expect gold prices to fall, while 57 respondents (the remaining 27%) expect gold prices to trade sideways in the coming week.

The highlight of this week's economic news calendar is the release of the core PCE price index report for May, as the market will be very interested to see if the Fed's favored measure of inflation improves further, increasing the likelihood of a rate cut in 2024.

The market will also release the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for June and the Standard & Poor Case Shiller Home Price Index for April on Tuesday, and the results of MBA mortgage applications, new home sales and Federal Reserve Bank stress testing on Wednesday. Thursday will release the May Durable Goods Report and Quarter 1 GDP final figures, as well as May initial jobless claims and pending home sales data. Friday will release the University of Michigan consumer confidence final figures for June.

Markets will also be watching a series of speeches by central bank spokespeople, including those by Federal Reserve Chairpeople Waller and Daly on Monday, Cook and Bowman on Tuesday, and Barkin and Bowman on Friday.

Daniel Pavilonis, a senior commodities broker at RJO Futures, said gold appears to be in the midst of a summer slump, but there is still a lot going on beneath the surface.

"If you look at the retracement of the dollar, the dollar is still going up, we are slowly going up and energy prices are going up," he said. "That could lead to a rebound in interest rates, which puts some pressure on gold."

"But in the end, we will see elections approaching, European interest rates may rise because of what's going on in France, and French bond yields will rise because of the election."

"Fundamentally, I still think it's very, very good for gold in terms of de-dollarization, interest rates, debt, political instability," he said. "But there may be a pause here."

Regarding the decline in gold prices last Friday, Pavilonis said he believes it may have been influenced by hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve.

"I think part of the reason is that yesterday the Fed had discussions with Brainard about the possibility of not cutting rates," he said. "Then, this morning [June 21], we released some European data, which may have weighed on the market, but then we released the global composite PMI and manufacturing PMI, which I think were slightly higher."

Mr. Pavilonis said the inconclusive data presented a strange situation for market participants. "Are we in a recession because interest rates are too tight, or are they not tight enough?" he asked rhetorically. "Some of the data is completely messy and I think that creates some uncertainty for the market."

Although Pavilonis believes that global instability will drive up gold prices in the coming months, he still believes that gold prices could decline further in the coming week.

"I still think there could be some downside," he said. "We had a double top around $2,440. We came back and tried to make new highs, actually made new lows, and then we started gradually moving higher in early June, all the way to the levels of the past few days... but the candlestick chart on the futures daily [chart] doesn't look that good."

"I think the path of least resistance is down," he concluded. "Maybe we'll start coming back down to around $2,250."

Michael Moor, founder of Moor Analytics, wrote that based on the trading of gold last Friday, the chart shows that there is a further downward trend in gold.

Ji Wyckoff, a senior analyst at Kitco, said traders appear to be taking long positions for the coming week.

"The near-term technical stance for gold and silver has become more bullish over the past week, which has attracted chart-based speculators into the market to go long," he said. "Technically, the August gold bulls have an overall near-term technical advantage. The next upside price target for the bulls is to close above solid resistance at the June high of $2406.70. The next near-term downside price target for the bears is to push futures prices below solid technical support at the June low of $2304.20."

At 09:10 Beijing time, the main contract of COMEX gold futures is now 2334.8 US dollars/ounce.