By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com: Another failed week of trying to get above $1,800

Gold’s fate of being stuck — for now at least — in $1,700 territory seems real as the Federal Reserve heads for its monthly meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, where the noise of U.S. stimulus tapering is likely to get louder.

If that isn’t enough, the U.S. jobs report for September is due next Friday, and any growth number in that might be enough for Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his coterie of policy makers looking to snip $15 billion each month from the central bank’s monthly bond buying of $120 billion.

U.S. gold futures’ most active contract, , were down $20.75, or 1.2%, at $1,781.85 an ounce by 1:15 PM ET (17:15 GMT).

It was almost down 1% for the week. This is its largest loss in six consecutive weeks.

“Gold is not finding any love with European sovereign funds or for that matter any of the major institutions,” said Phillip Streible, precious metals strategist with Chicago’s Blue Line Futures. “It’s like the moment it hits $1,800, people hit the sell button. That’s what happened today, and the cascade of sell stop orders below just acted like falling pins.”

“This is just the end of a bad week for gold that isn’t going to get any better next week with the Fed meeting and jobs numbers looming. I’m looking at a retest of the $1,750 level and possibly much lower.”

The spike to a two-week high also weighed immensely on gold in Friday’s trade as the yellow metal suffered at the advance of its biggest rival.

The dollar surged after data on Friday showed the Fed’s annual inflation gauge hitting a 30-year high in September, keeping the pressure up on the central bank’s policy makers as well as the Biden administration in reigning in surging costs.

U.S. consumers are still at risk of rising inflation, but Americans appear to be able to accept higher prices from economic turmoils like the coronavirus pandemic. This was according the University of Michigan in its latest consumer survey.

Although gold was supposed to protect against inflation, this year it failed to meet its expectations. Expectations that the Fed would raise interest rates have weighed down the metal.