Gold Investing Retreats Further as Interest-Rate Uncertainty Hits Prices

Gold Sentiment continues to retreat...

GOLD INVESTING sentiment continues to retreat from multi-year highs, new data from world-leading marketplace BullionVault shows today, as the precious metal's price slump stalls but uncertainty over interest rates continues to weigh.

Measuring the balance of gold buyers versus sellers since 2009, the Gold Investor Index eased in July to its lowest in 8 months as the price of bullion steadied from the sharpest fall since the crash of spring 2013.

"While gold tends to thrive on uncertainty, it hates uncertainty over interest rates, and it's really not enjoying the US Fed's current confusion," says BullionVault director of research Adrian Ash.

"Were the gold crash and bear market of the mid-2010s to prove any guide, gold prices would only find their floor when the warnings of tighter monetary policy become fact. But the geopolitical backdrop is far more fraught today, and central bank gold buying is clearly supporting the market, seizing on the drop in prices."

Now caring for more than $7.8 billion in securely-stored precious metals for over 130,000 users from 175 countries, BullionVault saw the number of private investors buying gold in July drop 25.8% from June's count to the fewest since August last year.

The number of investors selling gold also fell again, down by 22.7% and also reaching an 11-month low. Together, that cut the Gold Investor Index by 1.9 points to 54.9, its lowest since November and just above the data series' long-term average of 54.8.

The Gold Investor Index would read 50.0 if the number of buyers exactly matched the number of sellers across the month. It set a post-pandemic high of 60.7 this March.

Says Ash: "Aside from the current uncertainty over interest rates, gold prices typically trade softer mid-year. The past few months' crash and volatility mean that longer-term investors are likely to welcome a stint in the summer doldrums just as much as precious metals traders will."

Priced in US Dollars, gold was dead-flat across July from June at $4026 per troy ounce, trading 22.9% below February's all-time record at the lowest month-end since October. Even so, gold hasn't fallen for more than 2 months running since October 2022, the longest such stretch since the historic 12-year bull market starting in mid-2000.

New interest in precious metals meanwhile retreated sharply once more last month, down 30.4% worldwide from June's count of new BullionVault account openings to the fewest since January 2025. But that still marked the 5th strongest July in the West London fintech's two decades of operation.

By weight, BullionVault users as a group sold 75 kilograms more gold than they bought last month, taking the total quantity now owned by the West London fintech's clients down 0.2% to a 3-month low of 43.5 tonnes.

Investor demand for silver matched investor selling almost exactly in July, keeping the total quantity of silver now owned by BullionVault users unchanged at end-June's 3-month high of 1,133 tonnes.

The number of buyers versus sellers ease in contrast, pulling the Silver Investor Index down to 53.7, lower by 3.7 points from June's spike to a 3-month high, made as the more industrially-useful precious metal sank 22.4% in price, its steepest drop since September 2011.

Silver prices slipped another 1.8% in July, finishing at the lowest in US Dollar terms since November beneath $58 per troy ounce.