Gold coiled in range: break 4,449 or lose 4,368? | XAUUSD Aug 13 plan

Hi everyone, Daniel here, an active prop trader. My bias on gold today is to the upside. Since last time, we formed a buy setup and then pushed up to new highs, but after that we got a brief sharp drop right at the economic data release, and now we're stuck in a fairly directionless market.

Right now we've got a sideways range built around a huge outside bar, and I think whichever way this range breaks out will very likely decide the next move for gold. Can gold hold that big-picture blue channel and break out to the upside? That's the key focus today.

Let's jump right into the daily chart. Yesterday's daily candle on gold closed as a bullish doji, so we've got a doji with an upside bias there. The daily scenario I laid out yesterday: first we saw a bearish doji form, but both the highs and the lows are still stepping up.

Compared to the previous bearish reversal candle, yes, there's stronger selling pressure showing here, but fundamentally I said the odds still favor gold keeping those higher highs and higher lows intact going forward. And for the main scenario, I explained that the daily chart tends to play out just like these last two candles here. Basically, after a reversal candle like this one, we're in a spot where price can easily sweep out the stop losses of the bears who shorted into that reversal, and from there form a big bullish candle to the upside.

On the flip side, for the bearish scenario, price would set its high level with or just below the doji-style bearish candle right before it, and then from there simply break down through the recent low to the downside. That was the bearish scenario I had been watching for here. In the end, yesterday's daily candle did print a higher high and a higher low, but it closed as a bullish doji, showing indecision right at the top there.

Since it didn't play out like the candle I was just describing here and this one, you can read into it that the bears are pushing harder and stepping in more aggressively than they did on that candle. And with two doji candles forming back to back now, there's a strong chance we're building a small sideways range right here on the chart. So price still tends to accelerate hard in the direction of any breakout, and that hasn't changed.

So for example, today we could easily range through the Tokyo session during the day, and then, once we hit the London and New York sessions in the evening, that's when a breakout-style move becomes much more likely. So let's move to the 1H chart now. Yesterday I ran a session for community members right around this red line here, where you can see a bearish doji candle forming, and that's exactly where I published that breakdown for them.

Let me walk you through what I covered on YouTube, focusing on just a few key points so I can break the analysis down clearly for you. First, on directional bias. As of the most recent price action, we'd seen bearish follow-through pushing lower right off that bearish reversal candle, so we were sitting inside a downswing.

That's why I told you the short-term bias is clearly to the downside for now. On top of that, the bigger-picture uptrend itself is still intact, since price hasn't broken below this blue channel. So the larger trend isn't broken, and that's why I explained that what we're fundamentally looking for here is pullback buying on dips.

So where exactly do we look for those pullback buys? It's a pullback into the upper edge of this recent sideways range right here. If we get that setup, or if price finds support again along this bear channel, then those are the kinds of moves where I'd want to start looking at going long.

As always, I'll walk you through the price action and the key points that led me to this call. Recently, that reversal candle marking the start of this downswing gave us a really clean sell setup. We got a climactic move there, with the bearish candle closing near its low, and that let us set stop-sell orders just below that low to catch the breakdown as price pushed lower.

On the flip side, since we've built such a clean, textbook sell setup here, I also mentioned that if price ends up breaking out above this level instead, the upside follow-through could come in strong and fast. As always, I'm not just laying out the bullish scenario here — I'm also giving you the exact criteria for when to flip your bias to the downside. The trigger to flip your bias bearish is a clean break below the lower edge of that blue channel that's been supporting this uptrend for so long.

And after that breakout, the scenario I walked you through was this: on the second down swing — basically after a pullback plays out — there's a strong chance price comes back down to test around the 4310 dollar level. And the final point here: the day before, after repeatedly forming small sideways ranges and failed breakouts, price finally broke to the upside and built an upward swing — that's the structure we're looking at. This entire sequence of market structure is a very important development, so I walked you through it.

As it turned out, the prior day formed a buy setup right after I posted. Price built a buy setup here and pushed the highs up, but the sharp drop was mostly a one-off, and it never even tested the lower edge of the blue channel. So on the 1H alone there was no really high-edge entry, and with only small breakouts we were stuck trading on scalp to intraday timeframes.

As for the exact points where you could actually enter, a clear, recognizable pattern is forming here — one I've taught the community many times — and I break that setup down in full inside the community. Today I'll share part of what's going out to the community: I break it into three key points, and I walk through each one under both a bearish scenario and a bullish scenario. The first point: we're in a sideways range where the breakout direction decides the next move.

My last point covers reading the blue channel axis and how to approach pullback buying from there. I walked through the best way to position in the current setup, plus the criteria for when to flip your bias. In this kind of tricky environment, price keeps grinding higher inside a small blue channel, yet a clean downtrend is quietly forming underneath.

I've laid out the smartest approach to trading exactly that messy backdrop. Now turning to the 1H chart, we've just closed a candle that's testing a downside breakout of the recent blue channel. If sellers follow through strongly from here and push lower, then we'll seriously have to consider flipping our bias to the downside.

That wraps up today's gold analysis. Hi everyone, Daniel here, active prop trader. My bias on gold today is to the upside.

Since last time, we formed a clean buy setup and then pushed on to make fresh highs. After that, though, we got a sharp one-off drop that landed right on an economic data release, and price has been drifting without much clear direction ever since. Right now we've got a sideways range built around a huge outside bar, and I think the direction of the breakout from this range will very likely decide the next move.

Can price hold the bigger blue channel and break out to the upside? That's the key focus for today's session, so let me walk you through it. Alright, let's dive straight in starting with the daily chart.

Let's talk about gold's daily candle from the prior day. It closed as a bullish doji, a bullish candle with a doji-style close. Now, the daily scenario I laid out yesterday was this: first we got a bearish doji forming, and while both the high and the low were pushing up.

Compared to the previous bearish reversal candle, that shape carries more selling pressure, no doubt. But fundamentally, I told you there's still a high probability price keeps stepping the highs and lows higher from here. And my main scenario was this: I explained the daily chart tends to play out just like these last two candles.

In other words, price is set up to sweep the stop losses of the bears who entered on this reversal candle, and once those stops get triggered and swept, it becomes easy to form a big bullish candle right off the back of it. On the flip side, the bearish scenario I had in mind was this: price sets its high level with, or just below, the doji of that prior bearish candle, and from there it breaks straight through the recent low to the downside. That kind of downside break was what I was picturing as my bearish case.

In the end, the daily and the prior day's candle did push both the high and the low higher, but the day closed out as a bullish doji candle, right at that indecision point. Since we didn't get the kind of move I was describing between this candle and that one, this actually tells us the bears stepped in more aggressively here, pushing with a fair bit of conviction against this candle. Also, since we've now printed two doji candles back to back, that strongly suggests a small sideways range is taking shape here, with price essentially stalling out.

So price still tends to accelerate hard in whatever direction it breaks. So for example, we should keep in mind that today it may just drift in a range during the Tokyo session, and then later on, once the London and New York sessions kick in, that's when a breakout move becomes much more likely. Now let's move to the 1H chart.

On the 1H, the day before, I ran a session for community members right around this red line here, at the point where that bearish doji candle was forming, so that's the level I want you to focus on. Let me walk you through what I was explaining here on YouTube, picking out just a few of the key points so we can go through it clearly together. First, let's talk bias.

As of right now, the most recent action shows follow-through to the downside off this bearish reversal candle. In other words, we were sitting inside a downswing, so on the short-term timeframe I told you the bias is clearly pointing lower. That said, on the bigger picture the broader uptrend is still intact, since price hasn't broken below the blue channel.

Because that structure holds, I explained that our main play here is still pullback buying — we're looking to buy the dips, not chase shorts. So where exactly do we look to buy the dips? I explained a couple of setups: first, if we get a pullback move back toward the top of that recent sideways range, and second, if price finds support again at this bear channel.

If either of those plays out, that's where I'd start considering going long. And as always, I've walked through a few key points in the price action that led me to this call. More recently, that reversal candle marking the start of this downswing gave us a really clean sell setup.

We saw a climactic move here, then a bearish candle closed with its low and close sitting close together, which set up a clean stop-sell entry right below that low. On the flip side, since price built such a clean sell setup right here, I also mentioned that if we later break above this level, the upside follow-through tends to come out strong, so momentum can really pick up fast. As always, I don't just lay out the bullish case — I also give you the exact criteria for when to flip the bias to the downside.

The signal to flip to a bearish bias is a clean downside break of the lower edge of this blue channel that's supported the whole uptrend for so long. And on what happens after that breakout, the scenario I walked through was that on the second downside swing, meaning the next leg down after the pullback, price has a strong chance of testing around the 4,310 dollar area. And the final point here is that yesterday, after repeatedly forming a tight sideways range and failing to break out, price finally pushed through to the upside and built an upswing.

This whole sequence of price structure is a really important development, so I walked through it in detail too. As it turned out, after the stream the prior day formed a buy setup. A buy setup formed here and the highs pushed up, but the sharp drop was mostly a one-off spike, and price never even tested the lower edge of the blue channel, so the 1H alone offered no high-probability entry — just a small breakout you could only work on scalping to intraday timeframes.

As for exactly where you could enter here, it's one of those clean, easy-to-read patterns I've walked our community through many times, and I break down the full setup in detail inside the community. Today I'll share part of what's inside the community-only breakdown. I cover three key points, walking through both the bearish and bullish scenarios.

First key point: we're in a sideways range right now, and the direction of the breakout is what decides the next move. Final point: the blue-channel bias and pullback buying. I walked through the best way to play the current setup and when to flip your directional bias.

We're in a small blue channel with the uptrend still holding, but a downtrend is forming nicely inside it too, so it's a genuinely tricky market environment right now. I'm walking you through the best way to navigate a market environment exactly like this. So let's zoom in on the 1H chart, where a candle has now confirmed a test of a downside break below the recent blue channel.

If we see strong follow-through to the downside from here, we'll have to seriously consider flipping our bias. That wraps up today's gold update.