“Now we are talking about gold being a long-term project … Prices are stabilizing.”
That’s what I said in the video. Stabilizing is generous: on 28 September gold touched a seven-week low of about $4,116. My main article treats gold’s fall as a pause in a long-term story. I keep building slowly and add miners for extra upside. Here is the strongest honest case that gold’s long-term argument has weakened.
“Gold just stays as it is.” Now that has a real cost.
In the video I said gold is not generating any income; it just stays as it is. That didn’t matter much when savings paid close to zero.
It matters now. On 29 September the US 10-year government bond yielded 5.26%. On 16 September the Federal Reserve raised its key rate to 3.75–4.00%.
Every year you hold gold instead of a safe government bond, you give up that interest. For gold to win, its price has to rise faster than about 5% a year, which a government bond pays if you hold it to maturity.
“They’re waiting for the long term.” Some aren’t.
I said that bankers, institutions and countries are waiting for the long term, 10+ years. Central bank buying was the engine behind gold’s rise: more than 1,000 tonnes a year in 2022, 2023 and 2024, according to the World Gold Council.
In 2025 that fell to 863 tonnes. In the first half of 2026 the World Gold Council counts 345 tonnes, the lowest first half since 2022. In fairness, that partly reflects a sharp revision of first-quarter data, and the second quarter alone was strong.
And some countries have become sellers. Russia sold about 50 tonnes this year through July. Turkey sold about 85 tonnes in the same period to defend its currency. When governments need cash, gold is one of the first things they can sell.
“A 65% uptrend in a year is crazy.” That’s the problem.
In 2025 gold rose roughly 65%. In late January 2026 it set a record of $5,501.70 on the London benchmark. By 29 September it was around $4,160, about 24% lower.
Big rallies often come before long, flat periods. Buying slowly into a falling asset still means buying a falling asset. Dollar-cost averaging, investing equal amounts at regular intervals, lowers your average price. It doesn’t make a bad investment good.
“The best of both worlds”? Miners cut both ways.
I called gold miners the best of both worlds: gold plus cash flow. In 2025 that worked. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index rose more than 150% while gold rose about 65%.
But that leverage works the other way too. Many mining costs are fixed, and total costs have been rising. The World Gold Council puts the industry’s average all-in sustaining cost (roughly what it costs to keep a mine producing an ounce) at $1,785 an ounce in the first quarter of 2026, up 16% on a year earlier. Part of that rise came from royalties, which are linked to the gold price.
When the gold price falls and costs keep rising, miners’ profits shrink faster than the gold price itself.
“What the big money did first” isn’t a one-way signal
Gold ETFs saw record inflows in January, right at the top. Then they had a record outflow in March. Following what large investors do doesn’t protect you from buying high. Sometimes they’re the ones buying high.
The bottom line of this side
With safe bonds paying around 5%, central bank buying slowing and some governments selling, gold has lost several of the forces that drove its rally. Patience is a virtue, but it’s not a strategy if the reasons for owning something have weakened.
Keep reading
- What You Actually Own When You Buy a Gold ETF
- The War Was the Headline. The Bond Market Was the Story.
I’m not a financial adviser. This is my own investing journey, not financial advice. Any investment decision is your own.