Gold Price Prediction: XAU/USD Retraces to $1,800 Prior to US NFP

Gold price (XAU/USD) replicates the traditional pre-NFP consolidation pattern as it falls from a four-month high to $1,780 on Friday morning. Consequently, the yellow metal records its first daily loss in four days amid cautious market conditions.

Amid sluggish trading hours, recent comments from International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva seems to have weighed on the XAU/USD bulls in addition to the apprehension around the release of vital US job statistics. "Recession risks are rising for many countries, and the outlook for global growth is extraordinarily uncertain and dominated by risks," stated Georgieva of the IMF.

In addition, concerns regarding the deceleration of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) markets may have contributed to the Gold price decline. "A global slowdown in initial public offerings owing to increased market volatility and a regulatory cloud over fresh listings from China has produced pent-up demand that could lead to an IPO boom in 2023," according to industry experts speaking at the Reuters NEXT conference.

In addition, the recent comments from New York Fed's John Williams appeared to have tested US Dollar bears and helped Gold sellers, as the policymakers stated that the Fed has more rate hikes to implement.

S&P 500 Futures fall 0.30 percent intraday to 4,070, although US 10-year Treasury yields rebounded from a 10-week low to reach 3.53 percent as of press time.

Notably, the dovish fears regarding the US Federal Reserve's (Fed) next move, supported by the gloomy Fedspeak and softer US statistics, appear to keep gold bears optimistic ahead of the US jobs report. Forecasts indicate that headline Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) will likely decrease to 200K from 261K previously, while the unemployment rate is projected to remain steady at 3.7%. It should be noted that a probable decrease in Average Hourly Earnings for the month in question could also weigh on the Gold price.