XAUUSD – Sellers Still Have the Upper HandGoldOANDA:XAUUSDParadise_NoirAt the moment, XAUUSD is still a market where I would rather look for downside opportunities than search for reasons to buy. Gold is holding above its recent lows, but both the fundamental backdrop and the way price is behaving on H1 suggest that the short-term advantage remains with sellers. From a fundamental perspective, what stands out to me is not a lack of supportive news for gold. Weaker U.S. labor data has reduced expectations for further Fed rate hikes, which would normally create a more favorable environment for the metal. Yet gold has struggled to take full advantage of it. The U.S. dollar remains strong and U.S. Treasury yields are still elevated, keeping pressure on XAUUSD. When a market receives supportive news but fails to respond accordingly, I usually take that as a sign that buying demand is not strong enough yet. Looking at the H1 chart, the message is fairly consistent. Price remains below the descending trendline, each recovery continues to produce a lower high, and the Ichimoku Cloud is still acting as dynamic resistance overhead. I have yet to see anything convincing enough to call this a genuine reversal. For now, these rebounds still look more like pauses within the broader decline than the beginning of a new bullish trend. The area I am watching most closely is 4,100–4,115. Buyers have defended this zone several times, so I would not want to rush into a SELL directly into support. Instead, I want to see this area genuinely lose its defensive role — price breaks below it, holds underneath, and fails to reclaim it quickly. If that happens, 4,036 becomes the next area I would expect the market to move toward. For me, the current picture is fairly straightforward: supportive news has not been enough to push gold higher, while the price structure continues to point lower. Until that changes, I would rather stay with the sellers than try to guess where the bottom is.