Silver Price Analysis: XAG/USD edges lower following lower Jobless Claims
|- The XAG/USD continued its downward path and fell to $23.75, below its 20-day SMA.
- US Initial Jobless Claims for the first week of December were better than expected.
- US bond yields are rising ahead of key labor reports on Friday.
In Thursday's session, Silver price (XAG/USD) continued declining and tallied a third consecutive day of losses, falling to $23.75. The precious metal price is being pushed down after US yields rose following the release of US jobless claims, which came in lower than predicted. The performance was further boosted by a steady US Dollar (USD).
In line with that, the U.S. Department of Labor revealed that the Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending on December 2 came in at 220K, vs. the 222K expected, and still accelerated from its previous 218K.
Following the data, US bond yields rose as strong labor market data favors the case of a more aggressive Fed. The 2-year rate is at 4.60%, whereas the 5-year and 10-year yields are at 4.15%. The rising rates further pressure the non-yielding metals as US Treasury bond yields are typically viewed as their opportunity cost of holding.
That being said, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to report Average Hourly Earnings, Unemployment Rate, and Nonfarm Payrolls on Friday. These reports will shape the expectations of the next Decisions of the Federal Reserve (Fed) as the Bank closely monitors them. It's worth noticing that the officials signaled that they need to see more evidence of the economy cooling down so the outcome of the data may shape the short-term trajectory of the pair.
As for now, markets are forecasting that the Nonfarm Payrolls have accelerated in November while wages decelerated and the Unemployment rate remains steady at 3.9%.
XAG/USD levels to watch
The technical indicators on the daily chart reflect a neutral picture. Despite a negative slope in the Relative Strength Index (RSI) indicating increasing selling momentum, it remains in positive territory, suggesting that buying pressure still exists. However, rising red bars in the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) histogram echoes that the bears are gaining momentum, which contributes to a somewhat mixed picture..
Concerning Simple Moving Averages (SMAs), the price is below the 20-day SMA, displaying a near-term bearish bias. Nevertheless, the position above the 100 and 200-day SMAs shows that the bulls have the upper hand in the larger timeframe.
Support Levels: $23.50, $23.30,$23.00
Resistance Levels: $24.00, $24.30, $24.50.
XAG/USD daily chart
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