Gold FOMO Flips to Selling as Prices Fall Again

But new gold investing jumps, buying sentiment strong...

The SHARPEST DROP in monthly gold prices in nearly two decades saw the number of private investors buying the precious metal rise by more than one-fifth in June on world-leading marketplace BullionVault, writes Adrian Ash at the West London fintech.

Led by unseasonal strength in first-time investing, that demand didn't quite outweigh selling by existing gold owners. Most likely to sell were investors who first chose to buy gold during the past two years' record run of new record prices.

So for some investors in gold, fear of missing out has flipped from chasing it higher to getting out in case prices keep falling.

But that selling is being matched by bargain hunting from both longer-term and new gold investors. Sentiment overall is strongly positive and running ahead of its historical average.

Down 7.6% from May to $4238 per troy ounce, the lowest since November, gold's month-average price made its steepest drop in June since August 2008 (-10.7%). It also came 15.6% below February's all-time high, the steepest 4-month drop since spring 2013's post-financial crisis gold crash (-19.2%).

In response, the number of private investors choosing to buy gold on BullionVault − now used by more than 130,000 people from 175 countries − rose 21.3% from May's 6-month low, while the number of sellers rose 19.1% from a 9-month low.

Together, that pushed up the Gold Investor Index by 1.2 points to 56.8, two points above its long-term average and the strongest reading on BullionVault's unique sentiment gauge since March's post-Covid record of 60.7.

The Gold Investor Index would read 50.0 if the number of sellers exactly matched the number of sellers across the month.

The number of people starting to buy precious metals for the first time on BullionVault meanwhile rose 10.9% last month from May's 10-month low, setting the second-highest June total in our 22 years of operation behind June 2020, summer of Western Covid lockdowns.

Because BullionVault finds 9-in-10 of its users in Western Europe or North America, the start of summer in the northern hemisphere more often sees a drop in the number of first-time investors, with June trailing each full year's monthly average by 14.6%.

Offsetting the rise in demand, this June's gold selling was led by BullionVault users who first bought gold in 2025 or 2026 accounting for nearly 1-in-3 (30.7%) of last month's sellers while making up fewer than 1-in-4 of start-June's owners (24.1%).

Perhaps driven by FOMO amid falling rather rising prices, that made new investors from the past 18 months well over 1/3rd more likely to sell (36.3%) than BullionVault users who had first bought in the previous 20 years.

After joining such a dramatic bull market, it's natural that more recent investors would become nervous as prices retreat. But the continued strength in new gold investing suggests that the New Year's spike wasn't simply a mania driven by momentum. Prices fell sharply between March and June, yet the second quarter of 2026 came in the top fifth of all quarters for new account openings on BullionVault.

Looking at weight, private investors as a group were very slight net sellers of gold last month, reducing their total holdings on BullionVault by just 16 kilograms from May's 6-month high (-0.04%) to 43.6 tonnes.

Now worth $5.6bn (£4.2bn, €4.9bn), that gold is all secured and insured in each client's choice of London, New York, Singapore, Toronto or (most popular) Zurich.

Silver prices fell harder than gold in June, down 8.4% to $71.33 per troy ounce, the lowest month-average so far in 2026 and 22.6% beneath January's record high.

Investor demand outweighed selling by 0.3%, growing the quantity of this more industrially-useful precious metal owned by BullionVault users by almost 4 tonnes to a 3-month high above 1,133 tonnes worth over $2.1bn (£1.6bn, €1.8bn).

The Silver Investor Index also outran its golden cousin, jumping by 5.4 points − the sharpest rise since December − to reach 57.4.

The highest in 3 months and 3.5 points above its historic average, that reading on the Silver Investor Index came as June's steep price drop saw the number of buyers jump 40.0% from May while sellers fell 25.5%.