Gold Price Forecast: XAU/USD Clings To $5,000 Floor As Next Test At $5,600 Builds

Gold Price – XAU/USD Holds The $5,000 Floor While The Market Eyes $5,600–$6,000

XAU/USD – From Vertical Spike At $5,600 To A Controlled Base Around $5,000

Spot Gold / XAU/USD is trading in the $5,041–$5,044 band, with April 2026 COMEX futures near $5,046 after a volatile swing from a January record around $5,600 down through the $4,920 area and back above $5,000. The move has shifted from a vertical sprint to a broad consolidation. Price now sits comfortably above the 50-day EMA near $4,947 and the 200-day EMA around $4,809, so the structure is still a primary uptrend with a correction inside it, not a broken market. The key working range is $4,950 support to roughly $5,298 resistance, with $5,146 acting as the first “switch” that would confirm momentum is returning on the upside.

Labour, Wages And Why The Macro Mix Still Tilts In Favour Of Gold / XAU/USD

US nonfarm payrolls added about 130,000 jobs versus a 70,000 consensus, but the quality of the hiring matters more than the beat. Roughly 137,000 new jobs came from private education and health services alone, which tells you the strength is concentrated, not broad. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, yet the household survey response rate dropped to about 64.3% because of bad weather, so the headline is cleaner than the underlying survey. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% month-on-month, translating to an annualised pace close to 4.8%, which is still too hot for a central bank that wants a durable return to 2%. At the same time, aggregate weekly hours have grown only about 1.0% over the last year, and cyclical hiring leans heavily on non-residential construction linked to AI data-centre build-outs instead of a broad cyclical boom. For XAU/USD, this combination is ideal: the economy is not collapsing, but it is not strong enough to justify a hawkish shock. That keeps growth alive while leaving room for lower real yields and a continued bid for hedges.

Inflation, Yields And Fed Path – 2.4% CPI, 2.5% Core And Real Rates That No Longer Crush Gold

Headline CPI running at roughly 2.4% year-on-year and core inflation around 2.5% marks clear progress from the 3% peak in September 2025, but the Fed cannot declare mission accomplished. Fed-funds futures assign about a 90% probability to a hold at the March 18, 2026 meeting and around a 51% chance of a 25 bp cut by June. That is a measured, cautious easing cycle rather than a panic pivot. Ten-year Treasury yields hovering near 4.06% and a US Dollar Index around 96.9 signal that real yields have come off the highs and the dollar’s grip has eased. That shift is exactly what Gold / XAU/USD needed. Every 10–20 bp of relief in real yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding metal, and even a modest dollar pullback magnifies price gains for global buyers who operate in other currencies. As long as yields grind sideways to lower instead of exploding higher, the macro backdrop remains constructive for XAU/USD.

Central-Bank And Institutional Demand – 800 Tonnes A Year Keeps A Hard Floor Under Gold

Official-sector buying has not disappeared. After the 1,000-tonne annual spree between 2022 and 2024, estimates for 2026 still point to roughly 800 tonnes of net central-bank purchases, equivalent to around 26% of yearly mine supply. Monetary authorities in countries such as Poland, China and Turkey are still using gold to dilute concentrated exposure to the US dollar and to backstop their balance sheets with neutral, seizure-proof reserves. That is sticky, long-horizon demand. On top of this, ETF and futures data show that large players have reduced leverage and momentum exposure but have not walked away from the trade. Elevated open interest in April futures around $5,046 and the resilience of XAU/USD above $5,000 after a deep correction confirm that big portfolios are repositioning, not exiting. For the metal, this is a classical transition from speculative blow-off to institutional accumulation at higher reference prices.

Gold Versus Equities And Crypto – Rotation Away From High Beta Into XAU/USD

The equity and crypto tapes are starting to crack exactly where they should if the gold story is real. The S&P 500 failed to sustain a push beyond the 7,000 zone, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped back under the 50,000 region, signalling fatigue after a powerful run. Bitcoin has collapsed from a record above $126,000 in October to a drawdown of nearly 50%, and while the recent rebound toward $70,000 grabbed headlines, it did not erase the damage. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen around $5.8 billion of net outflows over three months, even though the one-year net inflow number still sits above $14 billion. That pattern – money trimming, not capitulating – fits with a de-risking phase rather than a secular exit. Against that backdrop, Gold / XAU/USD is not screaming higher; it is quietly holding the $5,000 line while other risk assets struggle. The gold-to-S&P 500 ratio broke above 0.55 in October 2025 and then cleared 0.65 in January 2026, setting an upside path toward 0.87 in the medium term and potentially the 1.50–1.70 zone later. That is what relative leadership looks like when capital starts migrating from speculative trades into hard collateral.

India – IBJA Spot Weakness Versus MCX Futures Strength Around ₹1,51,000–₹1,56,000

Inside India, one of the most important physical markets for Gold / XAU/USD, the tape shows a split personality that actually supports the global bull case. The IBJA 999 benchmark stands around ₹1,52,765 per 10g, with silver at about ₹2,42,433 per kg, marking a second straight day of declines after a prior spike. Headlines highlight gold down as much as ₹3,000 per 10g on February 14 and silver cheaper by up to ₹16,700 per kg, part of a broader 16-day slide that has knocked roughly ₹24,000 per 10g off the record high and about ₹1.47 lakh per kg off silver. The message is simple: rupee-denominated spot prices have corrected enough to trigger price-sensitive demand. At the same time, MCX near-month contracts are bouncing, with LKP Securities flagging support around ₹1,51,000 and resistance near ₹1,56,000. The fact that futures are stabilising while physical prices soften says that local hedgers and traders are already leaning bullish again, even as households and jewellers enjoy slightly lower tags. That combination – better entry levels for Indian buyers and a hedgeable range on MCX – is another brick in the floor under global XAU/USD.

Technical Structure – Triangles, Wedges And The $4,400–$5,600 Battlefield For XAU/USD

The medium-term chart for Gold / XAU/USD is defined by repeating bullish continuation patterns rather than topping structures. Ascending triangles formed between April and August 2024 and again between April and August 2025, each producing moves on the order of $900–$1,000 once price broke out. A shorter triangle from October to December 2025, built around a $4,400 base, delivered the most recent impulse toward $5,400–$5,600. When price spiked above $5,400 and then reversed, the pullback stopped exactly at the old $4,400 breakout shelf and printed a bullish hammer, which is a classic retest of former resistance as new support. At the same time, gold broke out of an ascending broadening wedge around $4,500 and then came back to test the upper wedge line on that same $4,400 dip. That action signals a phase shift: the market has moved into a higher-volatility growth leg rather than rolling over. Key levels now line up cleanly. Structural support sits at $4,400; tactical support is staggered at $4,761 and $4,950; first resistance stands at $5,146; extension resistance marks around $5,298; the wider battle zone ranges from there up to the $5,600 band that capped January’s spike. As long as XAU/USD holds above $4,950 on closing basis, the pattern looks like a consolidation band carved out above prior highs, not a distribution top.

Cross-Asset Confirmation – Gold, Silver, Platinum And Copper All Flash Strength

The broader metals complex is not contradicting the message from XAU/USD. Consensus price forecasts show gold, silver, platinum and copper all hitting new historic or multi-year highs in January. Manufacturing remains weak in the eurozone but is improving in the US and across Asia as production and demand firm up, which is consistent with a soft-landing narrative. The same macro drivers that support gold – moderate growth, controlled but persistent inflation, and elevated geopolitical risk – are lifting platinum-group metals, where supply issues add a fundamental squeeze on top of macro. For gold, this matters because a broad-based rally in precious and key industrial metals tells you the move is not a one-off positioning quirk; it is a repricing of real assets against fiat and financial claims.

Scenarios For The Next Leg – What Happens Above $5,146 And Below $4,400 In Gold / XAU/USD

From the current $5,000 area, three broad regimes are realistic. In the constructive base case, Gold / XAU/USD oscillates between roughly $4,950 and $5,600 while markets digest disinflation and a cautious Fed. A daily and then weekly close above $5,146, backed by rising open interest and stable or falling real yields, would confirm the end of the current consolidation. The next magnets would then be $5,298 and the January high near $5,600, with a realistic extension path into and above $6,000 over the following months if macro tailwinds stay in place. In a sideways regime, price churns between about $4,761 and $5,298 as investors trade ranges while waiting for a clearer signal on US growth, inflation and policy. That scenario delays the timing of a breakout but leaves the structural bull intact, with every deep dip into the $4,700s–$4,900s likely to attract strong demand. The risk scenario is a decisive weekly close below $4,400. That would invalidate the current wedge and triangle structures and open a deeper retracement, likely alongside a sharp rebound in real yields and a stronger dollar. For now, the current macro and flow picture does not fit that risk case, but $4,400 is the line that separates a healthy bull from a broken pattern.

Trading Stance On Gold / XAU/USD – Buy, Sell Or Hold At $5,000?

Price around $5,040, well above the 50-day and 200-day EMAs and resting on a dense cluster of supports between $4,761 and $4,950, does not match a bear-market profile. The labour backdrop – 130,000 new jobs, 4.3% unemployment, wage growth near 4.8% annualised – keeps growth intact without giving the Fed licence to slam the brakes again. Inflation at 2.4% headline and 2.5% core, ten-year yields around 4.06%, a dollar index in the high-90s, central-bank buying near 800 tonnes a year, rotation out of AI-driven equities and volatile crypto, an improving metals complex and a rising gold-to-equity ratio all push in the same direction. Gold / XAU/USD still deserves a bullish label. The stance is clear: XAU/USD is a buy-on-dips trade with a medium-term bullish bias, not a market to be structurally short while it holds above $4,950 and certainly above $4,400. Accumulating exposure into weakness in the $4,761–$4,950 band, with upside focus on $5,146, $5,298 and then the $5,600–$6,000 zone, aligns with the technical and macro setup. Only a sustained weekly break below $4,400 would justify flipping that stance from buy-the-dip to neutral and waiting for a new base at lower levels.

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