Senior Trader Daily Update 3 November 2017

Good morning everyone.
 
Thursday saw a few more items ticked off the week’s ‘bucket list’ but gold and silver held station within recent ranges.
 
First cab off the rank was the Bank of England monetary policy announcement. The central bank raised rates (for the first time in ten years) from 0.25% to 0.5% and indicated its intention to move aggressively by hiking 0.25% twice more over the course of the next two years (<sarc off>).
 
US economic data releases were then dispensed with (Weekly Initial Jobless Claims were down 5K to 229K vs 235K expected and 3rd Qtr Productivity (prelim) was +3.0% vs +2.4% expected and +1.5% for the 2nd Qtr) ahead of the much-anticipated announcement from President Trump of the next Chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
 
In line with market expectations (and media leaks), 64-year-old Jerome Powell was favoured by the US President to take over from incumbent Chairman Yellen when her term expires in February next year. Chairman-elect Powell, the Keynesian status-quo candidate, differs only in respect of his background which is based in law compared to the economics backgrounds of his predecessors.
 
Attention now turns to Friday’s US Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data for October with market consensus forecasting a 312,000 increase in Non-Farm Payrolls and a 4.2% Unemployment Rate according to Bloomberg.
 
Technically, XAU/AUD remains trapped within a well-defined (rising) wedge-congestion zone bounded between approximately AUD 1637.50 and just beneath AUD 1670.
 
XAU/USD fleetingly penetrated the USD 1280.50 trendline resistance but rolled over and gave up the bulk of the day’s advance. XAU/USD remains supported above the 200 Day moving average (USD 1262) with resistances emerging at USD 1282.00 (21 Day moving average) and USD 1297.00 (55 Day moving average), beyond which lies big figure psychological resistance at USD 1300.00
 
Good luck and have a great weekend!
 
Regards,
Andre