Looking back at the gold price movement this month, it maintained an overall downward trend with repeated bottoming processes, testing the support around 3960 multiple times. Although the highs continued to move lower and the bears maintained the initiative, there was also significant buying support at the bottom. Ultimately, the monthly chart closed with a small bullish candlestick with a long lower shadow, indicating that funds continued to enter the market at lower levels, further exacerbating the divergence between bulls and bears. On the fundamental side, the Fed's interest rate decision kept rates unchanged as expected, but the overall tone remained hawkish, and high interest rate expectations continue to be a major factor suppressing gold. However, the PCE data released on Thursday showed a 0.1% month-on-month decline, indicating a temporary easing of inflationary pressures, which brought a technical rebound to gold. But this was more of a sentiment recovery and not enough to completely reverse market concerns about the future policy path. Looking ahead to August, the focus on gold prices may gradually shift from the Federal Reserve to the situation in the Middle East. Whether geopolitical risks continue to escalate will directly affect changes in safe-haven sentiment and may become an important variable in determining the next direction of gold prices.

From a technical perspective, the Bollinger Bands on the daily chart continue to narrow, and the market is still in the process of choosing a direction. Before the large range of 4200-3960 is effectively broken, it is not advisable to be overly bullish or bearish. Range-bound trading remains the main operating rhythm of the current market. From a 4-hour chart perspective, the high of 4116 this week has not been effectively held. After falling back under pressure on Friday, it touched a low of around 4020 before stabilizing and rebounding, which is basically in line with our trading expectations. We are still holding long positions and will continue to focus on swing trading and compounding strategies in the short term. Next week, pay close attention to the resistance zone of 4100-4120 and the support zone of 4020-4000. Before a breakout from this key range, it is still recommended to maintain a strategy of buying low and selling high within the range, and patiently wait for the market to give a clear direction.