Starting off the week's trading on a gloomy note, gold prices were seen slipping since the opening of the Asian session this morning until continuing into the early European session.
There was an increase in demand for gold as the Iran-Israel war conflict intensified last week, but gold prices did not show a significant jump.
With risk-on market sentiment beginning to ease, the attraction to gold has faded slightly as prices traded lower at the opening of the week.
Turmoil in the Middle East continues to be the focus of the market so far this week and is also an important driving factor in the current volatility in gold prices.
Examining the XAU/USD price chart which measures the value of gold against the US dollar, the movement of the gold price in the past week as a whole is seen to be flat.
The highest level reached was around 2417.00, failing to touch back the record high of 2430.00 reached in the previous week.
In today's European session, prices started to make a decline to last week's lows around 2355.00.
Investors are watching for a bearish price movement signal that is below the Moving Average 50 (MA50) barrier line on the 1-hour time frame on the XAU/USD chart.
If the price is pushed lower, the price drop target is expected towards the RBS (resistance becomes support) zone at 2300.00.
Hitting that zone will mark the gold price's latest low for a 3-week trading period.
However, if the price rises again in the following trading sessions, crossing the MA50 barrier will expect a higher rise for gold.
A break above the levels reached last week will see price attempt to challenge the all-time high at 2430.00.
