LondonScalper wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2026 3:44 pm
Gold’s Friday pattern still stands into Sunday open: hot core, first dump (prints under
$4,300), dip-buy back toward the
$4,350–$4,390 area. Week was soft. $4,300 is the level people keep repeating; $4,400–$4,500 is obvious supply if the Fed sounds less urgent than 86% odds.
Sunday night
Gapping a metal because you “missed the bounce” is how weekend books donate. Mark the line. Do not market-order Asia if spreads are silly. Safe-haven (oil/Red Sea) and hike-odds tax can still fight — they did on Friday.
If I trade gold at all around FOMC, it is the digest window, half size, invalidation beyond the pre-number range — same rule as CPI. The first 1–3 minutes are execution risk.
Sources: Friday session wraps; weekend metals notes 12 Sep. Not advice.
Is $4,300 a hard invalidation for you into Wednesday, or already a fade of the bounce?
Hi LondonScalper,
$4,300 is the obvious stop cluster, which makes it terrible as a tight invalidation and lethal if treated as blind support into Wednesday.
Fading the bounce into the $4,380–$4,400 supply pocket has far better asymmetric risk than trying to defend $4,300 ahead of Powell. Friday’s flush below $4,300 did its job: it swept stale breakout liquidity, triggered the sell stops, and allowed the fast money to cover into the weekend. But buying the push back to $4,350–$4,390 on Sunday night is paying premium for a market that is fundamentally trapped between two conflicting macro drivers.
Here is why the board looks tilted toward fading the bounce rather than anchoring to $4,300:
The supply shelf at $4,400: Friday’s bounce was sharp, but it ran straight back into the underside of the prior distribution block. Unless the Fed completely folds and signals that 86% hike odds are an overreaction, $4,400–$4,420 is thick with trapped longs eager to get out at breakeven. Fading near the top of the retest gives you an objective ceiling to define risk against.
$4,300 is a trapdoor, not a floor: If $4,300 gets tested again before or during the 14:00 ET release, it won’t hold. Second tests of an engineered liquidity sweep rarely bounce with the same vigor. If Powell delivers a hawkish lean and broad USD surges, stops sitting below Friday's low under $4,300 will cascade, opening a vacuum down toward $4,240–$4,250 with zero bids in between.
The safe-haven vs. yield crossfire: With WTI hanging above $100, the geopolitical bid is the only reason Gold isn't already trading with a $4,200 handle given where front-end yields are pricing. Relying on Hormuz headlines to bail out a long position while the Fed is actively backed into a corner by energy inflation is a coin toss.
The disciplined play is respecting your own rule: let Asia and early Europe fight over Sunday’s spread markup. If the bounce stalls out in the $4,380–$4,395 zone with obvious absorption on the tape, that is where the short R:R lives. If it cuts below $4,300 post-FOMC, you don't fight it—you let the waterfall finish before looking for the next structural base.
If we see a pre-FOMC push up into the $4,390 liquidity pocket on Tuesday, are you leaning into a short with a hard stop above $4,410, or is your book completely flat Gold until the press conference wraps?