Senior Trader Update: Gold catches a bid in Asian trade

Good morning all,
 
AUD/Gold caught a bid in Asian trading yesterday in spite of reduced liquidity due to the absence of Chinese participants who are out for ‘Tomb Sweeping Day’, Monday and Tuesday of this week.
The move higher during the session was on the back of a weaker AUD which was kicked down on weaker than expected Retail Sales Data (AUSTRALIA FEB. RETAIL SALES -0.1% M/M; EST. 0.3%)
 
Gold then consolidated into European trading where two geopolitical events kept markets vigilant. The first was a 300 year old skirmish between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar flaring up as a result of Brexit. Former conservative leader Michael Howard said during the weekend that Prime Minister Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect Gibraltar as Margaret Thatcher once did for the Falklands. The comments follow the publication of the EU’s draft guidelines for Brexit negotiations, which said that any new agreement with the U.K. that applies to Gibraltar will need to be approved by Spain.
 
The second major event was a terrorist attack on the Russian metro (nail bomb, with an additional one discovered and defused) which killed a reported 10 people.
 
US dollar weakness during US trading kept the bid under AUD/Gold - arguable whether marginally weaker US ISM data was responsible for the US dollar being on the backfoot (U.S. manufacturing ISM fell to 57.2 in Mar, just below expectations of 57.3, vs 57.7 in Feb; prices rose to 70.5.)
 
US equities were driven lower throughout the 1st half of overnight US trade before paring most of their losses.

As we commence the day here, AUD/Gold remains well-entrenched within its uptrend channel which commenced when the market bottomed out in mid-December last year. $1662/1665 should bring major technical resistance being the conjunction of the upper bounds of the trend channel and the much-vaunted 200 Day Moving Average (please see attached chart/pdf)
 
Kind regards,
Andre Lewis

Senior Trader
ABC Bullion