XAU— I can’t be bothered to listen to this song anymore. The price is grinding higher along the moving average, but the open interest has quietly been pulled back by a big chunk. This isn’t a wash; it’s someone who, while you’re looking up and paying attention to the road ahead, quietly pulls the table out from under you. On the futures side, the active buying and selling are synced while volume contracts—there’s even one fewer breath of buys than sells. They’re propping up the scene with only a few outstanding orders from the spot market, purely as a way to reassure themselves. I’m done— with this kind of volume, they still want to keep things going. The shorts haven’t even really started to flex, and the longs are already backing down first.