Gold extends losses on greenback strength, trades around $1270

The ounce troy of the precious metal continues to erase last week's gains against the greenback, with the XAU/USD trading at $1270, losing around 1%, or more than $11, on the day.

Today's upbeat data from the United States allowed the greenback to build on its gains from yesterday, pushing the US Dollar Index to a fresh 2-week high at 94.01. At the moment, the DXY is at 93.87, gaining 0.6% on the day. On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the retail sales in the U.S. expanded by 0.6% on a monthly basis in July, lifting the yearly growth to 4.2%. Another data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed that the headline general business conditions index of the August 2017 Empire State Manufacturing Survey rose to its highest level in three years at 25.2. with all the sub-indexes recording improvements.

In the meantime, major equity indexes in the U.S. started the day higher, suggesting that the safe-havens could continue to have a difficult time finding demand and the pair could remain under pressure with no more significant data left in the remainder of the session.

Technical outlook

The CCI indicator on the daily graph is moving below the 0 mark, suggesting that the bearish momentum is building up in the short-term. The initial support for the pair aligns at $1267 (20-DMA) ahead of $1256 (Aug. 2 low) and $1251 (Aug. 8 low). On the upside, resistances could be seen at $1291 (Aug. 11 high), $1300 (psychological level) and $1308 (Nov. 2, 2016, low).

Today's data from the U.S.

• US: Retail sales for July 2017 were $478.9 billion, an increase of 0.6% from June
• NY Fed: Business conditions index climbed fifteen points to 25.2, highest level in nearly 3 years
• US: Prices for US imports edged up 0.1% in July