In November, the gold market had just seen the heavy news of a $4 billion large delivery — JPMorgan completed the largest gold delivery since the 2008 financial crisis, followed by an internal directive that stirred market nerves: all gold traders in New York were instructed to urgently relocate to Singapore with their families within a week, with no external press release, emphasizing the deadline through internal emails. This unusual action quickly triggered speculation about the shift of the gold trading focus.
Just last Friday, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) experienced a sudden system failure, leading to a long-term disconnection of trading services for the Asia-Pacific region, setting historical records for both the scope and duration of the outage. It is important to know that CME's Comex gold futures are one of the core hubs for global precious metal pricing. This outage directly caused the hedging channel for London spot gold to fail, causing the gold buying and selling price spread to soar from $1 to over $20 in an instant, exposing the fragility of the global precious metals trading system and briefly paralyzing gold trading in the Asia-Pacific time zone.
Meanwhile, rumors about the future of Federal Reserve Chairman Powell are rampant. Despite the fact that his chairmanship does not end until May 2026 and his term as a governor will extend until 2028, and he has repeatedly stated that he will not resign early, rumors suddenly circulated on social media at the end of November that he would announce his resignation at an emergency meeting on December 1. Even though it was later confirmed to be false, it was not without basis—former President Trump has publicly criticized Powell multiple times and hinted at a successor, with White House National Economic Council Director Hassett being listed as a popular replacement. Consequently, market expectations for a shift in the Fed's monetary policy have fluctuated sharply, which is precisely a core variable affecting gold prices.
Three seemingly independent matters all point to the gold market. Currently, spot gold has reached the $4200 mark, and institutions generally believe that 'loose expectations + weak dollar' are opening up long-term upward space for gold, while also warning of the pullback risks brought by crowded long positions. Under the dual effects of interest games and systemic fragility, the grey rhino or black swan in the gold market may already be brewing, as this game that affects global capital is on the eve of a key turning point.
Gold, as a zero-yield asset, is seeing its opportunity cost continuously decline under the expectation of a high probability of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, and global central banks have been continuously buying gold to support prices, highlighting its long-term value preservation attributes. However, in the short term, as of December 3, London gold has already fallen below the $4200 mark, and factors such as a rebound in the dollar and investors taking profits may trigger short-term volatility, making blindly following trends prone to being trapped by market fluctuations.#币安区块链周
