Gold pays Nothing. No coupon, no dividend, no yield. Its entire return depends on price appreciation alone. That single fact also defines its weakness. Its competition is sovereign debt yields, and since US is the superpower US Bond Yields set the Global benchmark.
The chart shows two separate headwinds, arriving in sequence.
The first came during War. Gold should have run higher on war headlines, and briefly it did. But Real Yields, measured through TIPS, were climbing as the Federal Reserve held tight against an oil driven inflation scare. Rising real yields lift the true opportunity cost of holding precious metal. Gold fell from above 5300 in March to near 4000 by June, even with the geopolitical risk still alive.
Then came the Nominal Yields. The US 30 Year has moved from 4.62 percent in March to 5.27%, sitting near the top of its 2026 range and at 20 Year Highs. This is a supply and fiscal credibility story rather than a Growth story, and it keeps the discount rate elevated.
Gold performs best when money is cheap and uncertainty is high. Right now, only one of those two conditions is present.
To watch: US 30 Year Yields
The headwinds matter, but I would separate cyclical pressure from structural invalidation. A firmer dollar and rising real yields can cap gold tactically; the more important test is whether central-bank demand, ETF flows and miners absorb the pressure without breaking trend. If they do, weakness is consolidation rather than a thesis change.
It appears that all brokerages have an axe to grind against Gold. The BS starts with Gold yields nothing. A lot of borrowed ideas come from the US market. We live in India and use INR. WOULD you care to look at last 25years of returns of Nifty vs Gold in INR?