In this brief market commentary, host Sam and analyst Alex dissect a sudden $80 intraday drop in gold prices. Sam sets the stage by showing a multi‑asset screen that includes equity futures, the euro‑dollar, gold, and the U.S. 10‑year Treasury note, noting a recent breakout in yields that coincides with the gold sell‑off. Alex explains the primary drivers: (1) real yields—calculated as the 10‑year Treasury yield minus inflation expectations—are rising, as evidenced by an inverted TIPS curve; (2) strong labor market data (jobless claims and non‑farm payrolls) and upcoming fiscal stimulus are pushing yields higher and bolstering inflation expectations; (3) quantitative easing remains in place, supporting a longer‑term gold bull market despite the pull‑back. They illustrate the tight lead‑lag relationship between Treasury yields and gold, showing that the T‑note often moves first. Alex forecasts that if the Fed provides forward guidance at its September meeting, yields could fall, potentially sparking a renewed rally in gold. The segment concludes with an invitation for viewer comments.
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Hey Alex, how's it going?
Hi, good afternoon.
Good. I'm, uh, I just really quickly wanted to grab you because, uh, as you know, I've been on and off the desk this afternoon and, uh, my phone keeps bleeping because everyone keeps saying gold, gold, what's going on in gold? And obviously we're down $80 in gold, which is a lot, but, but we'll look at it in a second. I think there's some rationale behind not just what's happening today, but also a bit more of a reasoning behind why perhaps a medium-term view is still applicable in this sense. But let me just quickly share my charts and give a bit of context for our discussion. I want to keep this quite, quite concise. I've got obviously a mix of different asset classes in front of me here. So equity index futures going DAX, NASDAQ, S&P left to right. I've got euro cable top left, gold then top right, which we'll expand and look at And the other interesting one I want to look at here is the US 10-year, the T-note down in the bottom. And just starting with the 10-year, you know, quite interesting move that we had seen, which is— and I know you're going to develop this point a bit further, but we've had a bit of a breakout of some of the recent price range. And you can see we've traded quite heavy here, yields rising in the US. And on a longer time frame, this was a key level I was talking about in the briefing to our guys this morning. Which was that cluster of resistance up where it had been holding. So the price activity before we saw that breach that came kind of late July, we came there, we actually hesitated right on that trend line. I'm sure you were watching at the time. Then it kind of flushed lower again. We've had a bit of an extension and some of that timing has been also coinciding with the gold move. But let's get the gold chart up because that's the talking point. And here it is. And, you know, you have to excuse a lot of these lines. But one of the discussions I was having with the group today was about, you know, this was about that scenario building, pre-planning, the identification of key levels that when you're trading a fast money momentum product, which characteristically gold inherently is. Then when I was having this discussion, we were trading 20, uh, 2020, I think at the time we were about here. And this was very early at the open when we came in. And then I started talking to the guys saying, look guys, you've got to be looking down at maybe as far as 1954. And people, new people are looking at me going, are you insane? Down that low? But look, I mean, these aren't levels I've just put on. These were part of our discussion from, from the morning. So definitely always prudent to, to view quite differently gold as a volatile asset comparative to some of the other products, but But Alex, talk me through your interpretation of this and why, why is gold selling off so aggressively today?
Sure. Well, as you said, there's not really been any news out today. If I just share with you my screen as to what I think it is, I'd like to first share what's actually driving gold, in my opinion. Could be wrong, but I like to look at these correlations and just wait for this to load. So I think what's driving the gold price higher is— you can see that this is correlated to real yields. What's real yields? Well, it's the yield on the 10-year minus inflation expectations. Now there is actually a product that shows us that's called the TIPS bond, and this is inverted. So the TIPS bond's actually been flipped upside down. You can see just how awesome the correlation is right the way through the coronavirus. This was in play way before the coronavirus. You can see that as inflation expectations have risen, the reason inflation expectations are rising is because economic data supports a recovery, which leads to inflation. But at the same time, the central bank is keeping interest rates low. Why are they keeping interest rates low? Well, to facilitate credit lending, which is good for growth, and so that businesses will lend. You know what happened in 2013 with tapering Taper tantrum was that the Fed came off the gas too early and yields skyrocketed. And what happened? The economy started to slow. And that's not what the Fed wants. The Fed explicitly wants to avoid that situation again. OK, so I think what we're seeing is we're seeing— what we've seen over the last few days is we've actually seen gold. We've seen Treasuries come off like what Anthony just showed in his chart. Treasuries have been coming lower, which means yields have been rising. And if the yields are rising, well, that's one of the main reasons that gold is rising. Yeah. And so I'm just going to share with you this chart. This is a chart of trade.
Yeah, just while that loads up, the other point here as well, if you think about the timing, we had that surprisingly strong jobless claims, then we had it followed up with surprisingly strong non-farm payrolls. Then you had Trump sign 4 executive orders which removed some of those near-term risks surrounding things like mass evictions, increased jobless, loss of confidence. So he comes in and inevitably they're going to cut a fiscal new stimulus package as well, and that's only going to pump it up even further in terms of yields is concerned over the next coming period, which is bullish inflation expectations as well, right? Exactly.
And we've got retail sales on Friday. So I think if I'm trying to isolate what's driving price, the 3 factors— number 1 is QE, in Q1 2009 when the bull market started in gold, which was correlated to QE. People, analysts actually think that there's going to be more QE. So it's not QE. So even though gold's coming off, I think a bearish trend is unlikely because QE is still there and we think that more QE. Number 2 is inflation expectations. And at the moment, data supporting recovery. So inflation expectations should continue to rise in the future. So it's not that. Number 3, the only other final thing is yield story. And we can see here that this is not the yield. The blue line is the Treasury T-note. You can see— and the candle chart is gold. You can see that gold peaks around that 2090. And as gold comes off, what happens with the Treasury follows it. And look at this bounce here. Look how perfectly that is. The T-note actually rallies first, then gold pops, finds sellers, then the T-note rotates, then gold rotates. You can see the T-note leading gold here lower. And coupled with, of course, positioning. Gold's been sharply higher, so you get the sharp pullback. And I actually think that I'm willing to make a forecast, and obviously it's not a trade recommendation, that in September, if yields continue to rise into the September Fed meeting, which is on September 16th, if the Fed do issue forward guidance, that should move yields lower. And if inflation expectations continue to rise and economic data supports a recovery, Actually, the bull market's not over for gold at all. We're a bit early on this trade because the Fed meeting's not till a month away. And so gold could carry on falling, then consolidate. But I'm watching out that market's smart and might anticipate the Fed doing forward guidance. And if the Fed do forward guidance, that could be the timing for the next major move higher in gold.
Cool. Well, look, I think that, that's, uh, that's an appropriate conclusion then to— with a forecast to finish it off. So, Alex, Thank you very much for that insight. Any questions at all for either myself or Alex, drop a comment on the video on YouTube, and then he and I will pick it up throughout the rest of the coming days. Okay guys, thanks so much, Alex.
