Third Day Of Declines Despite Fed Chair Powell’s Hint Tightening May Be Over

Gold is little changed in the Asia-Pac session, after closing 0.1% lower at $1982.53 on Wednesday. Bullion closed lower for the third straight day, despite lower US Treasury yields following Fed Chair Powell’s hint that it may be finished with the tightening cycle.

• When discussing whether every meeting is "live", Chair Powell said, "We are going meeting by meeting, asking ourselves whether we achieved a stance of policy sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down 2% over time" and "We have come very far with this rate hiking cycle, very far."
• US tsys reacted favourably to Powell’s remarks, rallying 14-21bps across benchmarks.
• Earlier in the NY session, US tsys shifted richer after lower-than-expected ADP private jobs data (113k vs. 150k est, 89k prior). This move extended after weaker-than-expected ISM data: Mfg (46.7 vs. 49.0 est), Employ (46.8 vs. 50.6 est), New Orders (45.5 vs. 49.8 est) and Prices Paid (45.1 vs 45.0 est).
• From a technical standpoint, gold’s current level neither troubles support at $1947.0 (20-day EMA) or resistance at $2009.4 (Oct 27 high).