Gold at 4,345 support — slip back to 4,341 or break 4,406? | XAUUSD Sep 9

Hi everyone, Daniel here, your active prop trader. My bias on gold today is to the downside. Since last time, price broke above the range and, just as I called it, climbed 277 pips, but it never developed into a real trending move, so we've stayed stuck in a directionless, choppy market.

Right now I read this as a corrective phase against the broader downtrend, and I think the breakout direction of this doji that formed mid-way through the upswing is the first key marker that decides our bias. Whether price now slips back into the downtrend, or breaks above the recent high and flips into a full uptrend — that's exactly the decision point I wanted to walk you through here today. Alright, let's dive right in and take a close look at the daily chart.

Since yesterday's YouTube update was on a break, we've now moved forward two daily candles on the chart. First, the daily-chart scenario I laid out centered on this big bearish doji candle right here. Since this candle wiped out nearly 50% of the prior bullish candle's body, you could read it as a bearish bias, but it's also staying contained inside that earlier range.

So I explained that a range was possible, and that either way the market was in a situation where a clear direction was hard to come by. And in fact, looking back at how price actually played out afterward, it printed a small bearish doji that also traded inside the prior candle's range, so just as the scenario suggested, we got a flat, directionless sideways range continuing. Now for yesterday's daily candle, since price broke out to the downside, we're basically in a spot where downside follow-through tends to come through fairly easily from here.

So for today's daily scenario, the main bias I'm leaning toward is to the downside. That said, if we read this as the first breakout off the doji, the breakout candle itself is very weak, so it likely gets pulled back inside and slips right back into the range. If price does slip back into the range, then a move to test the high of this doji candle becomes the natural next step, so that's another scenario we should keep firmly on the table here.

With that daily-chart backdrop in mind, let's now drop down and work through the 1H timeframe in detail. On the 1H, our last community-only stream went out right as this bullish candle closed. Here on YouTube, I want to walk you through exactly what I was explaining to our community members at that moment, so let's carry on.

First, my bias. At the time of the broadcast, we were sitting right here, so I was setting my directional bias off these two candles: this bullish reversal candle, and right after it, this weak doji with poor follow-through. And what was that bias?

Basically a sideways range. Since we were stuck in this sideways range, I explained that there really wasn't any clear direction to commit to yet. On the daily chart too, as I mentioned, there was no clear direction.

We were right in this sideways range, still at the stage of figuring out where price wants to go, so I explained we simply couldn't commit to a firm directional bias yet. Late last week, price did briefly form a buy setup right here, but it was clearly weaker than the bullish candle setup just before it. We then saw a sharp drop, and it's highly likely that this decline was actually running down and sweeping the stop loss orders sitting under those long positions.

On the flip side, the follow-through below that big bearish candle wasn't strong at all. After printing an extra-large doji, price then moved into a rebound phase here. About this rebound, on its own the bullish candle looks huge, but the bearish candle right before it was just as large, so in terms of momentum this move really isn't strong at all.

Rather than pure momentum, this was just volatility picking up, and since it's right at the New York session open, it's a pretty common pattern, so that bullish candle really wasn't a strong one at all. If you actually track the move that followed, these three rebound candles all overlap each other, and up near the highs, price keeps getting rejected and wound back by the wicks every time. So this was never a strong bullish push.

After that, price effectively pulled back off a double top and slid lower, and just recently it's been carving out a sideways range built off these two key reference candles. So how did gold actually behave after that broadcast? On the shorter timeframe my bias was to the upside, and price did break out of the range and rally about 277 pips.

But in the end it slipped right back into the daily-chart scenario, and we're now stuck in this drawn-out sideways range again. In today's community-only breakdown, I'm walking through these three key points, laying out both the bullish scenario and the bearish scenario in full detail for each one. The 1H stays in a downtrend, so my bias is bearish for now.

Point two: I'm reading this recent bounce as just a corrective pullback within that downtrend. Which way this current doji breaks is the first key point that sets the short-term direction, and those are the three points I wanted to walk you through today. Right now I read this as a corrective phase against the downtrend, so my bias stays bearish. That wraps up today's gold update.