Check the Mannarino Market Risk indicator at  337 and the Buffett indicator at 236%. Both point to huge risks in the market. Neither of these indicators are crash indicator, but both indicate extreme risk. These indicators are the perfect indicators of stagflation. A really unpleasant situation to live through. A great situation for gold if we compare it with the stagflation of the 70’s.

How can the government save the economy until after the mid term elections?

They will print as much currency as needed to keep the economy and particularly the markets buoyant then they will have to provide as much liquidity as necessary to keep the banks afloat.

What should that do to the gold price? I look at the current situation with huge debt, war, oil shortages, fertiliser shortages, inflation, money printing, the need to replenish war supplies and see one solution. Precious metals. (I am sure there are many more, such as shorting the market. At what risk?).

I do not care about the price. I care about preserving purchasing power. Gold and silver have done that for millennia. 

Why Is Gold Falling in the Middle of a War?

One would expect the opposite.

A war involving Iran, the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut, Russia and Ukraine, Brent crude around $100 a barrel, and gold, the traditional safe haven, is trading at its lowest level in more than seven weeks.

So why is gold falling?

Oil rises. Inflation expectations rise. Treasury yields rise. The market begins pricing a more hawkish Federal Reserve. Expectations of further rate hikes increase. The dollar strengthens. And suddenly the metal that pays no interest becomes less attractive relative to interest-bearing assets.

That is the chain reaction currently driving the short-term gold price.

Reuters reported that gold fell as much as 4% on Monday to around $4,111 an ounce, its lowest level since August 5. At the same time, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level since June 2007, while markets were pricing roughly a 70% probability of another Fed rate hike in October.

War should be bullish for gold.
War-driven oil inflation can nevertheless be bearish for gold.

The market is concentrating on the second sentence. I remember that in the 70’s gold ran up with the oil price.

Nobody agrees completely on what happens next. The important point is that the immediate price mechanism is no longer simply “war equals safe-haven buying.” The oil shock has changed the interest-rate equation.

My view is that this is precisely where the distinction between gold as a trade and gold as monetary insurance becomes important.

If gold is being valued primarily against the next Federal Reserve decision, then higher rates and a stronger dollar are obvious headwinds.

But if gold is being held because governments are running enormous debts, currencies can be devalued, geopolitical alliances are changing and the global financial system is becoming increasingly fragmented, then today’s interest-rate calculation tells only part of the story.

Dip or a new regime?

The honest answer is that nobody knows.

Anyone who tells you with certainty where gold will be three months from now is selling something.

There is another variable worth watching closely: diplomacy.

There are now active efforts to negotiate between Washington and Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran is prepared to negotiate, while Iranian officials have linked reopening the Strait of Hormuz to agreement on Tehran’s conditions. President Trump, however, has rejected reports that he has offered Iran sanctions relief.

If diplomacy succeeds and Hormuz reopens, some of the war premium in oil  and potentially some of the inflation premium in bond yields  could disappear very quickly.

That would create another headwind for gold.

But while the market is playing this game, the physical economy is dealing with something much more tangible: expensive energy, disrupted supply chains and the possibility of serious pressure on businesses and consumers if the disruption persists.

This is a game being played on screens while the real economy has to buy the diesel.

Central banks don’t read your chart

This is the part of the gold story that I think is easiest to overlook.

The short-term market is being driven by rates. The structural market is being driven by central banks. The two are not necessarily doing the same thing.

The World Gold Council’s 2026 central-bank survey found that 45% of respondents expect their own gold reserves to increase over the next 12 months, a record percentage, while 89% expect global central-bank gold holdings to increase.

OMFIF’s latest Global Public Investor survey tells a similar story. A net 30% of reserve managers intend to increase their gold allocation over the next one to two years, while 61% expect gold to settle somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000 by June 2027.

These are not traders looking at a five-minute chart. They are reserve managers thinking about currency diversification, geopolitical risk, liquidity and the resilience of their reserves.

The physical movement of official gold is becoming increasingly interesting. The Netherlands is an excellent example.

DNB moved approximately 86 tonnes of gold during March to August 2026, reducing its North American holdings and increasing its London allocation. But this was not simply 86 tonnes being physically transported from America to London.

Approximately 59 tonnes were sold in New York and replaced with internationally tradable gold in London. More than 27 tonnes were physically moved from North America to the Netherlands, while a similar quantity subsequently moved from the Netherlands to London.

London’s share of Dutch gold therefore rose from approximately 18% to 32%.

That is better described as strategic reallocation of gold custody than simple repatriation. That distinction matters. Central banks are increasingly considering three things simultaneously: security, accessibility and liquidity.

Gold that is sitting somewhere inaccessible during a crisis is not necessarily as useful as gold that can be mobilised quickly.

The WGC’s survey also found that the Bank of England remains the most commonly cited storage location among central banks, but that changes in custody arrangements are increasing.

Wall Street’s gold targets

The disagreement among analysts is enormous. Bernstein raised its 2026 gold target to $4,533 an ounce, citing central-bank buying and expectations of limited Fed tightening.

Goldman Sachs has a $4,900 year-end 2026 target, with central-bank demand and reserve diversification among the reasons for its forecast.

Natixis, meanwhile, has previously maintained a $4,600 year-end target.

The important point isn’t which number is right. The important point is that professional forecasts are themselves moving as the underlying macroeconomic variables change.

Today’s gold price is not a vote on the long-term monetary system. It is the clearing price between buyers and sellers today.

The BIS warning

There is one important footnote.

The Bank for International Settlements published an analysis in December identifying statistical evidence that both U.S. equities and gold had entered what it described as “explosive territory”, the sort of price behaviour associated historically with bubble conditions.

But there is an important qualification: the BIS did not say that a crash was imminent or that gold definitely was a bubble. Its analysis explicitly says that identifying a bubble remains an open question and that its statistical tests provide no information about when a correction might occur.

And if a major market liquidation occurs, gold can fall with everything else. That is not a contradiction. Gold is an asset that can be sold for liquidity during a crisis. In a forced deleveraging event, correlations can converge dramatically.

That happened before, and it can happen again.

Peru tells another story

Then there is the other side of the gold market.

The Guardian reported this week that illegal gold mining has overtaken cocaine trafficking as Peru’s most profitable illicit industry. The estimated value of the illegal trade could reach as much as $18 billion in 2026.

That is not a trivial side story. It demonstrates what happens when a commodity becomes sufficiently valuable that enormous economic incentives develop outside the formal mining system. Gold supply is not infinitely elastic.

Higher prices can bring marginal production into the market, but they can also expose the environmental, social and criminal consequences of extracting that marginal supply.

So what do I do?

For me, this brings the question back to the simplest possible one:

Am I buying gold to win next week’s trade, or am I buying it to preserve purchasing power through a monetary and geopolitical transition?

Those are completely different objectives. If the objective is trading, today’s price matters enormously. If the objective is long-term monetary insurance, trying to identify the exact bottom becomes much less important.

I therefore see regular accumulation of both gold and silver as one way of solving the perennial problem: “Is this the best price?” Nobody knows. You can wait for the perfect entry and discover that the perfect entry never comes. Or you can accumulate gradually and accept that some purchases will inevitably be made too high and others too low (if that’s possible when buying).

I am also watching the gold and silver miners closely. The leverage to the metal price is certainly tempting, although the miners introduce an entirely different collection of risks: management, energy costs, taxation, political risk, financing and ore grades.

Will gold fall further? I have no clue. Could it? Absolutely. Could it also turn sharply higher if the market suddenly focuses on currency risk, geopolitical risk or renewed central-bank demand? Absolutely.

But my conclusion is unchanged: The short-term tape is being run by rates. The structural market is being shaped by central banks, geopolitics and reserve diversification.

Central banks appear to be thinking about gold on a considerably longer time horizon than the traders who are selling it today.

Our job is different. Store honest metal. Accumulate patiently. Let the desks argue about the price.

PLATINUM

OUT: On the Daily chart (29 August 2026).

URANIUM

OUT (29 August 2026) URA. 

BITCOIN AND GOLD

Bitcoin outperforms Gold  (20 September 2026).  20.11 One ounce gold coins buys one bitcoin, this was over 41 ounces August 2025.

ETHUSD: Sell: ( 29 September 2026)

BTCUSD: SELL: 30 September 2026.  NASDAQ (Cyan).

GOLD AND SILVER STOCKS

02 September 2026 Gold outperforms gold stocks.

Silver outperforms silver stocks (09 September 2026).

GOLD AND SILVER

Silver to Gold Ratio

Gold outperforming Silver. (29 September 2026)  Silver is coming out of the ground at about 8:1 and the Gold:Silver ratio is 68.88:1.

GOLD TO USD

USD outperforms Gold, (29 August 2026).

Copper (SELL: 30 August  2026)

A LOOK AT THE GOLD AND SILVER CHARTS

Gold’s low of the week was $4,110.00, and the high was $4,279.00, now trading at around $4,179.00.

• Gold Monthly:  is an OUT. (25 March 2026). Looking more positive. Signals turning positive

• Gold Weekly:  (SELL: 01 October 2026) 

• Gold Daily: (OUT 02 September 2026).

The low for Silver this week was $59.95, and the high $64.16, trading around $61.11 at present. 

• Silver Monthly: (OUT: 20260430.  ( Buy $24.00 March 2024 to sell May 2026: $73.13 = 204% Gain in 2 years, 2 months). A couple of indicators pointing up. No buy yet.

• Silver Weekly: (SELL: 01 October 2026). A little weaker.

• Silver Daily: OUT (01 September 2026).

Clients who request an introduction to an independent precious metals supplier may contact our preferred partners by clicking here.

Any purchase or sale is conducted solely between the client and the selected supplier.

A video by Mike Adams on the Goldbacks. Well worth a look. watch here

On the Stockcharts.com charts above, the blue vertical lines are our proprietary system buy signals and the red vertical lines are system sell signals – for information purposes only

An interview with Josh, owner of Scottsdale Mint: watch here

Please contact us to arrange the purchase and storage of your gold and silver requirements in a safe, insured location outside of your jurisdiction.

If you are interested in an overview of Fort Kobbe, you may want to have a look at this video: Mike Brown, Director, Fort Kobbe, International Vaults, A DotCom Magazine Exclusive Interview

This is my interpretation of the market and is not to be taken as financial advice. Before making any buy or sell decisions, I recommend that you consult with your professional financial advisor.