Gold Technical Analysis: Set-up favours bearish traders until below 100-day SMA

• Gold lacked any firm directional bias on the first day of a new trading week.
• Any attempted positive move is likely to remain capped near 100-day SMA.

Gold extended its sideways consolidative price action through the mid-European session on Monday and remained confined in a narrow trading band near the $1475 region.

Meanwhile, the recent recovery from multi-month lows set in November has been along a short-term ascending trend-channel, which supports prospects for additional gains.

Bullish oscillators on hourly/daily charts add credence to the constructive outlook and support prospects for a move towards the top end of the mentioned trend-channel.

The latter coincides with 100-day SMA, around the $1490 region, which has been capping the commodity's attempted recovery move over the past one-month or so.

Looking at a slightly longer timeframe, the formation of a descending trend-channel on the daily chart over the past 2-1/2 months or so further points to persistent selling bias at higher levels.

Hence, it will be prudent to wait for some strong follow-through buying before positioning for a move towards reclaiming the key $1500 psychological mark.

Gold daily chart