Metals and Miners
Gold Adds 4% to $4,423
Gold bounced nicely off support around $4,000 after consolidating there for over a month. It climbed through all key EMAs before hitting oversold RSI levels and pulling back a bit to $4,423.
The net gain for the past month is just over 4%, and I believe we have likely reached the bottom of the corrective move. I expect gold to climb back above $5,000 in the coming months and make new highs in the first half of 2027.
Gold’s last month was a sharp late-summer rebound, then a Jackson Hole fade. Bullion is still well below January’s record, but miners and ETFs participated again after a long stretch of outflows.
What drove the rally:
U.S. fiscal / “debasement” trade. Treasury expanded long-bond buybacks (reports cited a doubling to about $4B per session). Yields and the dollar eased, shorts covered, and gold/silver jumped together. Silver outperformed on the month.
Softer labor / pause in hike fears. A weak July jobs print (including a reported contraction) and later CPI that was not hot enough to lock in a hike helped early August. Markets later put roughly ~65% odds on the Fed holding in September, with some hike risk still priced later in the year.
Geopolitics. Coverage tied extra safe-haven bid to the ongoing Iran conflict and energy-price spillover.
Positioning reset. After a huge ETF outflow reversal earlier in 2026 (precious-metals ETF flow momentum had swung from ~+$40B to ~–$20B on a 125-day basis), August saw the first real re-engagement. Global gold ETF holdings rose by about 60 tonnes in August; U.S. gold ETFs took in about $8B for the month. GLD alone took multi-billion weekly inflows during the spike. Hedge-fund COMEX net longs rose to an 11-month high.
It is also worth noting that a new structural buyer has emerged in the gold market. Since 2024, China has bought 49t of gold and Tether has bought 74t!
Tether has purchased more gold than China officially and now holds more gold than Australia, the world's third-largest gold producer.
Tether is a stablecoin—a cryptocurrency built to stay worth about $1. Its token is called USDT. Traditionally backed by dollars, now more so backed by US Treasuries. $180 billion of Tether is in circulation, so it is a significant amount. Gold now has increased buying demand from a deep-pocketed entity that is relatively new and wasn't a major buyer before, which should help push the price higher.
Hong Kong plans to expand its gold storage capacity from around 200 tonnes to over 2,000 tonnes within three years as part of developing a regional gold reserve hub, including airport vault growth and new clearing systems linked to the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
The initiative supports China's "Gold Road" strategy for yuan-based gold trading, physical delivery infrastructure, and deeper integration between Hong Kong and mainland markets amid rising Asian bullion demand. Some speculate that a Chinese gold reprice could drain global vaults toward Hong Kong and disrupt Western paper gold markets in London and New York, though this remains hypothetical.
Takeaway: UBS reiterated a path to $5,000 in H1 2027. Near-term debate is whether August was a durable debasement rerun or a squeeze that needs the dollar/yields to stay soft after Warsh’s inflation-first message. August was a macro + flows rebound—Treasury buybacks, weaker dollar, ETF re-entry, still-positive official buying. Miners leveraged it harder than the metal. Early September is a digestion phase after Jackson Hole. Between China’s plans and Tether’s gold buying, I think we should see a floor for gold around $4,000 and the potential to climb to $10,000 within a few years.
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