Gold Will Continue Its Short-Term Weakening TrendGoldOANDA:XAUUSDNouzTraderGold prices (XAU/USD) XAUUSD struggled to capitalise on the rebound from the $4,020 floor (a one-week low) touched in the previous session. Throughout Thursday's Asian session, this commodity moved within a very tight consolidation range. On the one hand, gold received an implicit upward push due to the absence of ultra-hawkish surprises in the FOMC Minutes. However, on the other hand, Donald Trump's official declaration of the end of the ceasefire triggered a full-scale military escalation, locking the US Dollar (USD) in its core strength zone. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ✅ Geopolitics: Ceasefire Ends, Iran Hits US Bases in Bahrain & Kuwait The Middle East battlefield officially entered a phase of full-scale open warfare after the Qatari diplomatic plan completely collapsed: - 🔸Trump's Truth Social Verdict: US President Donald Trump emphatically declared on Wednesday that "the ceasefire with Iran is now officially over." - 🔸Retaliatory Kinetic Warfare: Following the previous wave of US missile airstrikes, the Iranian military immediately launched aggressive retaliatory attacks targeting US strategic military installations and assets in Bahrain and Kuwait. - 🔸Macro Impact: This direct escalation of US military bases keeps geopolitical risk premiums at their highest levels this year. The threat of upstream energy disruption has rekindled global inflation concerns, which mechanically provides underlying support for the safe-haven US dollar and weighs on gold's appeal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ✅ XAU/USD Technical Analysis (Intraday) Technically, gold is forming a fragile horizontal consolidation pattern after being knocked off a two-week high above $4,200: - 🔸Fade the Rallies: The pro-USD fundamental backdrop indicates that any recovery in gold prices is projected to encounter daily selling (Fading Rally) immediately. As long as gold is unable to make a clean break above $4,110, the daily bias remains tilted to the downside.