Gold, silver and oil finish the session lower

Gold Technical analysis, overview, strategies, and levels

It was a relatively sedate session for gold prices which remained relatively rangebound and ending close to Friday's close. That has done little to aid either conformist or contrarian strategies awaiting further volatility the likes of which were witnessed in the preceding sessions that for the most part clearly aided conformist breakouts over contrarian reversals. Plenty of economic data awaits, but at this stage less is expected on the monetary and fiscal policy front, usually of greater relevance for the non-yielding precious metal.

IG client^* and CoT sentiment for Gold

The lack of movement in price has translated into little movement in sentiment, with retail long bias down only 2% since Friday's close.

Gold chart with retail and institutional sentiment

Silver Technical analysis, overview, strategies, and levels

As with gold, silver prices also dropped in yesterday's session. But the fall here as a percentage was slightly more severe and meant that gold outperformed taking the gold/silver ratio slightly higher. Pricing the uncertainty has always been difficult and has been a boon for conformist breakout strategies anticipating more volatility. The absence of that however, could start to see contrarian strategies come back into play, and lead to an eventual technical overview shift.

IG client^* and CoT sentiment for Silver

In sentiment, retail bias has also dropped slightly, but here remains in clear extreme long territory at 88% as of this morning.

Silver chart with retail and institutional sentiment

Oil Technical analysis, overview, strategies, and levels

Oil prices were in for another consecutive decline, briefly taking its price to 18-year lows, and led to top energy officials of the US and Russia consulting on the slump in oil markets following a phone call between their respective leaders. Although no action can be taken on the demand side to get consumers in lockdown to consume more of the energy commodity, only some sort of supply-side agreement could aid oil prices in lifting itself off the lows. We get the first of the usual oil data this evening out of API (American Petroleum Institute), which has been showing surprising deficits running in contrasts with EIA’s surplus.

Learn more about oil trading.

IG client^* and CoT sentiment for Oil WTI

As for sentiment, retail long bias has risen to a now extreme long 90%, and where in the case of both retail and larger speculative traders the vast majority of those longs have been initiated at a higher price level.

Oil WTI chart with retail and institutional sentiment

*The percentage of IG client accounts with positions in this market that are currently long or short. Calculated to the nearest 1%, as of today morning 8am.

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