The Market's Now Pricing a Rate Hike. The Dip Is Still the Opportunity.
Gold got knocked back to 4,429 on Friday's close, and the reason is sitting right there on the Fed-watch screen: traders are now pricing a 58% chance of a rate hike on 16 September — a hike, not a cut. That's the story this week.
The dollar is the piece to watch first. The DXY is pushing toward 99.16 on the back of the Fed Chair's hawkish tone and a jobs report that blew past forecasts, and that strength is exactly what's leaning on gold and silver right now. But the real trigger lands Thursday and Friday — PPI on the 10th, then CPI on the 11th. A hot inflation trend accelerates the hike bets; a cooler one could hand gold a sharp relief bounce. Today's map covers the dollar, silver and gold, with the exact zones for each.
DXY - Dollar Index
Here's the nuance that matters: the dollar's strength looks short-lived. Reading the Renko structure, Nikkhil has the DXY completing a corrective bounce inside a larger move that's ultimately headed lower — with the macro target down in the 94.61–92.93 zone.
Near term, the FOMC on the 16th can fuel a bounce, but he expects it capped: the best case is 100.94–101.13, and any rally there is to be treated as short-lived unless the dollar breaks cleanly above 101. That 101 line is the invalidation of the bearish case. On the downside, 98.75–98.84 is the pivot; lose it and the next leg lower comes quickly. For metals, the message is that today's headwind is temporary.
XAGUSD (SILVER)
Silver's drop is corrective, not a reversal — the daily still shows higher highs with no divergence, and the four-hour extension tagged the 61.8% level almost exactly before bouncing, a sign the sellers are spent. On the macro scale, as long as silver holds above 54.13, Nikkhil's plan is to buy the dips toward an eventual 87.84 — with a longer-term objective up in the 87–90 region.
The near-term path is choppier. He sees an ultra-short buy while price holds above 64 (targeting 69.20–69.70), followed by a deeper pullback toward 57–58 — which he frames as the ultimate buy zone before the larger uptrend resumes. In short: trade the chop, but the bigger plan is accumulation into a move that's still building.
XAUUSD (GOLD)
Here's where two timeframes have to be held in mind at once. On the macro scale, gold is unambiguously bullish: as long as it holds above the 4,285–4,165 support band, Nikkhil's ultimate target is the 5,018–5,109 zone — the 5,000 handle and beyond. That's the move he's accumulating for, and he's explicit it won't happen overnight.
The near term is where the caution lives. Into the FOMC, he expects chop, and his plan has two sides. On dips, the accumulation zones are 4,319–4,334 first (targeting 4,453–4,472 and then ~4,600), with deeper macro-buy levels at 4,238 and 4,118–4,069 if the Fed pressures price lower. On rallies, he's watching 4,600 — specifically 4,601–4,627 — as the zone for short-term, counter-trend sells back toward 4,100 or lower, a move he stresses would be short-lived.
The key switch: if gold breaks and holds above 4,600, that deeper-pullback plan is off and the path clears toward the macro target. His guidance throughout is patience — don't sell at current levels, don't chase, and wait for the FOMC to clear before trusting the bigger move.
Watch the gold breakdown
What to Watch This Week
Coming up: Nikkhil is live Wednesday with the midweek update — right before PPI.
The setup reduces to a split screen. Short term, the dollar is in control, gold is sitting near 4,429, and Thursday's PPI and Friday's CPI will decide the next move — hot prints press it lower, cool prints spark a snapback. But the macro hasn't changed: this is still a market Nikkhil is accumulating into, with 5,000 the destination. The discipline is to respect the short-term levels — fade 4,600, buy the dips at 4,319–4,334 — while keeping the bigger target in view and letting the data, and the FOMC, set the pace.
The full breakdown is live on the Moneytize YouTube channel, and this Telegram link gets you into the group for real-time updates through the week.
— The Moneytize Team