Market Recap 

XAUUSD 
XAUUSD finished the session at 4976.37, up 97.13 or 1.99% from the 01:00 open, after trading between 4854.34 and 5010.95. The low was set at 01:53, shortly after opening at 4879.24, and the high came at 18:48, leaving a total intraday range of 156.61 points, equal to 3.21% of the open and 79.6% of the current D1 ATR. The close occurred at 77.9% of the day’s range, 34.58 points below the high and 122.03 above the low, placing settlement nearer the top of the profile and above the opening level. Price action crossed round numbers, with an early dip holding above 4850 before the afternoon print above the 5000 handle to 5010.95; by the close, the pair sat 23.63 points beneath 5000. From the open, the session first extended 24.90 lower before a 131.71 advance to the high, and it ended between the 4900 and 5000 round figures. The intraday peak remained 108.22 shy of the 10‑day high at 5119.17, leaving that multi‑session reference intact. On the higher timeframe, the daily MACD read 74.86. Overall, the session featured an early downside probe followed by an advance into the evening high, and a close in the upper quartile of the range, with net gains on the day and a range that registered below one full daily ATR. 

GBPUSD 
GBPUSD traded in a tight band through the 00:00–08:34 session, registering a low at 1.35 at 00:02 before posting the high at 1.36 at 01:06 and settling at 1.36 by the close. From an open of 1.36, it finished lower by 0.00065, a decline of 0.05%, with a total span of 0.00253, equivalent to 0.19% of the open. The sequence was low-before-high, and price then retraced into the middle of the intraday range; the close was below the session midpoint, while the entire period held above 1.35 and remained capped beneath 1.36. Round-number areas framed the action, with the downside contained above the 1.35 handle and the upside shy of 1.36, and the market spending most of the session oscillating within those figures. On the higher timeframes, spot sat below the D1 Bollinger mid at 1.37, indicating positioning under that central band level into the close. Momentum indicators were mixed across intraday frames: the H1 RSI14 read 66.5, and the H4 MACD signal was at zero. Into the final minutes, GBPUSD was trading closer to the lower half of the day’s range than the upper, leaving a modest net decline on the session and an overall contained profile in price and percentage terms. No D1 ATR context or tick volumes were available for comparison, and no multi-day extremes were flagged, while the intraday extremes remained clustered within the mid-1.35s to just under the 1.36 figure. 

Economic Calendar Recap & Preview 

A steady policy hold in New Zealand and a softer U.S. factory print framed the last 24 hours: the RBNZ kept its Official Cash Rate unchanged at 2.25 percent (previously 2.25), while U.S. Durable Goods Orders fell 1.4 percent month over month, easing from 5.3 percent previously but coming in better than the consensus decline of 3.2 percent. Ahead, the U.S. labor snapshot leads the calendar with Initial Jobless Claims at 15:30 server time, expected at 205,000 after 227,000 previously; at the same time, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index is seen moderating to 3.0 from 12.6, offering an early read on February regional activity. Australia’s labor report lands first at 02:30, where the unemployment rate is projected to hold at 4.1 percent, matching the prior 4.1 percent and keeping focus on participation and full-time employment dynamics. A simple guidepost: if U.S. claims print lower than forecast, it would signal a still-tight labor market. No major policy meetings are slated, but any ad hoc remarks from central bank officials could color rate-path expectations around these releases. Volatility may pick up around the simultaneous 15:30 U.S. prints, where labor and manufacturing data hit together.