Wish I understood what was going on with the gold price. Shit goes gangbusters when nothing is happening, and when straits are closed and countries invaded it goes down.

Gold is largely a speculative asset just like any other, despite what you might believe given the culture we have that reveres gold as "real" value.

There is much more gold mined then used in jewelry or electronics. And the jewelry often gets recycled since people don't tend to carelessly throw out their gold jewelry.

The super majority of demand is just making bars to sell to banks and individuals to keep in vaults. This naturally means what controls its price is largey the amount of stockpiling going on.

Gold going gangbusters was mostly a sell off of US treasuries over the tarrif chaos last year which ended up chasing gold. It couldn't for example chase housing in China given the massive slump in their housing markets for years.

The straight being closed doesn't really signal to central banks or individuals that they need to sell more goverment bonds and swap into gold. If anything they will probably be tempted to sell to cover goods inflation from oil shocks.

Türkiye sold, literally, tons of it at the start of the war and that's one of the reasons the price went down.

Before the war central banks were buying it up like crazy. Iirc, it has surpassed US treasuries as assets for the first time quite a while.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkish-gold-reser...

Gold price has more to do with dollar devaluation than anything. When the money printer goes brrr the price of gold will go up in delayed response.

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"

"It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

[dead]

This might shed some light:

Gold, a 'safe haven' in uncertain times: Why is it crashing amid a war?

31 days ago | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526511