Gold slides to session low near $1205 on impressive ADP report

Gold came under some renewed selling pressure and dropped to a fresh session low during early NA session in wake of impressive ADP report.

Today's release of ADP report on the US private sector employment, showing addition of 246K new jobs in January, could have raised market expectations from Friday's official details, NFP. The headline number, however, triggered a sharp up-surge in the US treasury bond yields and underpinned the US Dollar, which eventually is weighing on dollar-denominated commodities - like Gold. 

Meanwhile, market reaction to surprisingly stronger ADP report remained muted ahead of the FOMC decision later during the day, while concerns over the US President Donald Trump's protectionist stance, especially after yesterday's comments over currency devaluation, still hanging over investors' sentiment. 

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com notes, "Personally I wuld not be comfortable unless we break 1220....then I can see us going quite a way higher and leaving the way clear for at least the 1233/36 resistance band..."

She further writes, "Now the downside as stated in in this 1204 region...I think to be small buyers down here with tight stops below 1197 would be the way forward....If we lose 1197 then the immediate pressure shifts to the downside and we could be looking at another pullback down to the 1185/1180 support band."