FUNDAMENTALOVERVIEWGold has entered aconsolidation phase as the bearish momentum eased somewhat. The fundamentalshaven’t changed at all as the US-Iran war is still ongoing and the disruption inthe Strait of Hormuz is keeping oil prices around triple digit levels. This should keep the bearish bias intact for now. There has been stronger jawboningfrom Trump though as he started to tout the negotiations and a potential dealalmost daily now. Just today, WSJ reported that Trump would be open toend the war without pushing for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. That wouldbe great news for the markets as the Iranians will likely reopen the Strait assoon as the US forces withdraw.But we will need Trump toannounce that to make it happen. He's certainly very uneasy right now with thestock market making new lows, much higher Treasury yields, triple digit oilprices and the Fed in "wait and see" mode.Given the positioning inthe market, the end of hostilities will most likely boost gold prices in theshort-term as the hawkish interest rates bets would get erased quickly. On theother hand, further escalation of the conflict would add more pressure on goldand likely drag prices down into new lows. As a reminder, Trump’s “ceasefire”ends on April 6 and he mentioned that he’d like to have a deal before that date,so keep a close eye on the headlines and especially on his Truth Socialaccount.GOLD TECHNICALANALYSIS – DAILY TIMEFRAMEOn the daily chart, we cansee that gold is consolidating below the broken trendline as traders await newcatalysts to pick a direction. There’s not much we can glean from thistimeframe, so we need to zoom in to see some more details. GOLD TECHNICAL ANALYSIS – 4HOUR TIMEFRAMEOn the 4 hour chart, wehave a downward trendline defining the bearish momentum and the resistance zonearound the 4,700 level. The sellers will likely lean on the trendline with adefined risk above the resistance to position for a drop into the major upward trendline.The buyers, on the other hand, will look for a break above the resistance topile in for a rally into the 5,000 level next. GOLD TECHNICAL ANALYSIS – 1HOUR TIMEFRAMEOn the 1 hour chart, we havea minor upward trendline defining the recent pullback. The buyers will likelylean on the trendline with a defined risk below it to keep pushing into newhighs, while the sellers will look for a break lower to increase the bearishbets into the major upward trendline around the 4,000 level. The red linesdefine the average daily range for today. UPCOMING CATALYSTSToday we get the US Consumer Confidence and US Job Openings data. Tomorrow,we have the US ADP, the US Retail Sales and the US ISM Manufacturing PMI. OnThursday, we get the latest US Jobless Claims figures. On Friday, we concludethe week with the US NFP report. This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at investinglive.com.