Gold Price Analysis: XAU/USD registered highest close in nearly 8 years above $1,770

• Gold closed the third straight week in the positive territory.
• Risk-averse market environment provides a boost to safe-haven gold.
• Markets are likely to continue to react to coronavirus headlines.

The troy ounce of the precious metal gained 1.5% last week and posted its highest daily/weekly close since October of 2012 at $1,771. 

Heightened concerns over a second economic lockdown in the US amid the surging number of confirmed coronavirus cases caused risk-off flows to continue to dominate the financial markets. Florida reported nearly 9,000 new COVID-19 cases on Friday while Texas decided to close bars and limit restaurants' capacity to 50% to limit the spread of the virus. 

Wall Street's main indexes lost between 2.4% and 2.8% on Friday to reflect the intense flight-to-safety, which ramped up the demand for safe-haven gold.

At the start of the next week, there won't be any significant macroeconomic data releases featured in the economic docket and investors are likely to react to weekend's coronavirus figures from the US.

Technical levels to watch for

Gold daily chart