#夏日创作营 The next gold move will leave you stunned…

On June 30, the London gold spot market had positions holders holding their breath. That day, gold prices slid all the way down, with the intraday low touching $3,942.43 per ounce, breaking through the $4,000 whole-number level and setting a new low since 2026. On social media, the narrative that “the gold bull market has completely ended” resurfaced and dominated again. Panic didn’t last. As gold’s value-for-money became increasingly prominent, buying inflows kept coming in, and gold saw a rebound in July. It has now held above $4,050 per ounce and reclaimed the 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day moving averages. This is not a one-off technical rebound. Over the past three weeks, the $4,000 level has been tested by the shorts multiple times, and each time it pierced through, it was quickly pulled back.
A sharp question then emerges: with all the negative factors that smashed the market in the first half still in play, why is gold no longer falling?
The answer is that gold’s brutal pullback has already pushed market pessimism to the extreme.
Looking back across the whole first half, gold price hit a historical peak of $5,598.75 per ounce on January 29. Even though the month saw a late-month pullback, it still jumped 13.01% for the month. February followed with another rise of 8.91%. At that time, the bulls were in full momentum. However, starting in March, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. March, April, May, and June each fell by 11.54%, 1.02%, 1.80%, and 11.69%, respectively. Within half a year, the maximum drawdown from the peak was nearly 30%, and bullish confidence was almost completely crushed. The three major bearish factors that weighed on gold were released in concentrated fashion from March to June. The Iran-U.S. conflict pushed up oil prices, and expectations for sticky inflation reignited. The newly appointed Fed chair Waller released hawkish signals, and market expectations swung from “three rate cuts this year” to “as many as two rate hikes within the year.” The US dollar index and US Treasury yields rose in tandem, significantly increasing the holding cost of non-yielding gold. Under the back-to-back assault of three pressures, gold kept losing ground, with the second quarter’s single-quarter drop reaching 14.17%, the worst quarterly performance since 2013.
But it is precisely this four-month, shockingly large decline that allowed the bearish factors to be fully digested, laying the groundwork for a stop to the slide and stabilization in July. Entering July, the market’s reaction pattern to the negative factors underwent a fundamental shift. The most direct signal is that bearish factors are still unfolding, yet gold is no longer making new lows. Recently, the intensity of the Iran-U.S. conflict has escalated again, risks of disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have increased, and international oil prices have risen more than 25% in July. Under the old logic, rising oil prices would boost inflation expectations, strengthen rate-hike expectations, and ultimately weigh on gold. But this time, while the US dollar index and US Treasury yields do rise accordingly, gold does not fall with them—instead, it has carved out an independent turnaround from the lows.
In technical analysis, “when it should fall but doesn’t” is a highly indicative market signal. When the market faces clear negative catalysts but refuses to move lower, it often means selling power has already run out and the balance between bulls and bears is undergoing a fundamental reversal.
Historically, similar chart characteristics appeared at three major gold bottoms in 2015, 2018, and 2022. Bearish news kept hitting, yet prices stubbornly held key support, and then, without exception, a trend-driven up move followed. The ongoing back-and-forth around the $4,000 level is now replaying this classic script.
And besides the technical signal, “when it should fall but doesn’t” deserves attention because three streams of upside momentum are standing behind it, ready to take turns.
The first layer of support pushing gold to stabilize comes from a style rotation in the equity market. Over the past few years, global tech stocks have been riding a sustained bull run driven by the AI boom, with a massive influx of capital into tech stocks that has clearly siphoned funds away from gold. But after July, tech stocks’ momentum visibly weakened. Deleveraging in Korea’s market helped drag global tech stocks lower across the board, and the “losing money” effect spread quickly. When the money-making effect in tech fades, investors’ risk appetite naturally cools, and some of the capital that exited tech stocks needs a new safe haven. Gold, as a traditional defensive asset, also has anti-inflation qualities and portfolio diversification benefits, so it naturally comes onto the radar for allocation-oriented capital.
The second—also the core—reversal catalyst comes from marginal weakening in US fundamentals. In June, US CPI year-over-year fell sharply from 4.2% to 3.5%, far below market expectations. Core CPI year-over-year also dropped to 2.6%, with the pace of easing inflation pressure surpassing the Fed’s predictions. The labor market signals are also worth watching closely: in June, nonfarm payrolls added only 57k jobs, far below the expected 115k, and the previous two months’ data were cumulatively revised down by 74k. The risk of the US economy losing momentum is rising. The “K-shaped” divergence in the US economy is setting the stage for a policy shift by the Fed. AI-related technology industries remain highly buoyant, but traditional manufacturing, retail, and real estate are still under persistent pressure. Growth in real household income has already fallen behind inflation, and consumer momentum has gradually weakened. Once the marginal impact of AI-driven capital expenditures fades, downside pressure on the US economy will quickly show up, and the Fed’s policy stance could shift rapidly.
The third—also the most solid—foundation is continuous gold purchases by global central banks. The World Gold Council’s latest survey on central bank reserves for 2026 shows that 45% of central banks have clearly planned to increase their gold holdings within the next 12 months. This is up sharply from 29% in 2024 and sets a new historical record. At the same time, 83% of respondents expect the share of gold in their country’s reserve assets to increase over the next five years. This kind of official, rigid buying is like putting a thick safety cushion under gold at the bottom, making it extremely unlikely that gold will plunge far below the $4,000 level. Confirming the bottom area doesn’t mean an immediate, one-way bull market.
In the short term, even if the Fed’s July policy meeting could still release hawkish signals and there remains room for the US dollar and US Treasury yields to move higher, gold will most likely range-bound and grind lower-to-higher between $4,000 and $4,300, with a further test of the $4,000 support not ruled out.
For ordinary investors, what to avoid most right now is going all-in to buy the dip and betting on a reversal. A steadier approach is to treat gold as part of a portfolio allocation: build positions in batches when prices pull back, using time to gain space.
Looking back from the current point in time, the暴跌 in the first half looks more like a technical correction within a long bull trend rather than the end of the trend. Gold’s core pricing logic—including the long-term weakening of the US dollar credit system, ongoing turmoil in global geopolitics, and the growing need for reserve diversification among central banks around the world—has not changed in any fundamental way. When market sentiment shifts from extremely optimistic to extremely pessimistic, when all negative factors have already been priced into the market, and when central banks keep taking in supply with hard cash around the $4,000 area, the outline of the bottom region is already very clear. For investors with a medium- to long-term perspective, gold at this location shows a decent risk-reward profile, and an appropriate window for allocation is opening. $XAUUSD ‌