Consolidation, Conviction and the Path to New All-Time Highs
As we close out 2025, gold is trading near $4,213 per ounce, having delivered one of the strongest annual performances in recent memory. Year-to-date gains exceed 50 %, yet the market has entered a familiar seasonal lull. Liquidity is thinning, volatility has compressed, and price action has settled into a well-defined range between roughly $4,100 and $4,300. From a dealer’s perspective – and after twenty years of watching these cycles repeat – this is textbook consolidation inside a structural bull market.
The 4-hour chart below (shared earlier) remains our primary reference point. An ascending trend line drawn from the October low near $3,600 continues to act as dynamic support. So long as prices respects this line, the intermediate uptrend that began in the autumn remains fully intact. A decisive close beneath it would shift the short-term bias from bullish to neutral and open the door to a retest of the psychological $4,000 level. At this stage, however, $4,000 has transformed from overhead resistance into substantial structural support – a development few would have imagined when we first outlined that target in early 2025.
Physical Market Reality Check
While the paper market digests its gains, the physical market is sending increasingly clear signals. Allocation delays from major refiners are now measured in weeks rather than days. Premiums on retail products – particularly one-ounce coins and smaller bars – have widened noticeably since October. Silver, in particular, is exhibiting classic shortage characteristics: COMEX registered inventories continue to decline, delivery delays on American Silver Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs stretch beyond 30 days in many cases, and generic round premiums have risen to levels last seen during the 2020–2021 squeeze.
Here in Asia, the physical market is feeling the squeeze even more acutely than the charts suggest. We’re personally facing persistent shortages of the most popular Swiss-minted products – especially 1 oz and 50 g bars – and have been waiting over a month for fresh supply from the refineries. Silver is tighter still; despite placing orders with a 50 kg minimum, I don’t expect to see new physical metal to arrive before the New Year.
Meanwhile, there are early signs that China’s recent VAT reforms on jewellery gold (effective 1 November 2025) are quietly redirecting demand toward investment-grade products. By cutting the tax offset for non-investment gold from 13 % to 6 %, the policy has raised costs for jewellery manufacturers and retailers. Initial data from the Shanghai Gold Exchange shows a noticeable uptick in activity: on 1 December, total turnover value jumped 70 % day-on-day to 97.7 billion RMB, with physical volume climbing 30 % to 1.68 million kg. Analysts see this as evidence that processors and investors are shifting toward tax-exempt SGE-traded bars and ingots, a trend that could add meaningful support to benchmark pricing as we head into the traditionally strong post-Chinese New Year season.
Industrial demand for silver remains robust globally, driven by solar, electric-vehicle and electronics sectors, while investment flows have accelerated dramatically in an already tight market. The result is a growing disconnect between spot quotations and the cost of acquiring immediate physical metal. We continue to believe silver has the potential to reach $75 per ounce during the first quarter of 2026 before a degree of calm returns once refiners and mints expand output to meet sustained demand.
Macro Tailwinds Remain Intact
Central-bank purchasing shows no signs of abating. The People’s Bank of China has been unusually quiet in public data for several months, yet market intelligence strongly suggests opportunistic accumulation continues during periods of price weakness – a pattern observed repeatedly over the past three years. Should Chinese New Year-related buying resume in force through January and February, the upside catalyst would be significant.
Real yields in the United States have turned modestly negative once again, while the Federal Reserve is widely expected to deliver additional rate cuts in 2026. Fiscal policy across the developed world remains expansionary, and geopolitical risk premiums – far from priced out – have merely receded to the background rather than disappeared.
Ronnie Stoeferle, managing partner at Incrementum AG and lead author of the annual In Gold We Trust report, summarised the opportunity set succinctly in a recent note:
“Consensus continues to assign almost zero probability to a continued powerful right-tail outcome for gold. In an environment of persistent fiscal dominance, negative real rates and unrelenting official-sector demand, that is not prudence – it is a mispricing of convexity. Gold remains the cheapest call option on monetary disorder most investors will ever have the privilege to own.”
Lukman Otunuga, Senior Market Analyst at FXTM, offered a balanced near-term tactical view:
“Gold is likely to remain range-bound between $4,100 and $4,300 into year-end. A weekly close above $4,320–$4,350 would signal the next leg higher toward $4,600–$4,800. Conversely, failure to hold $4,000 on a monthly basis would raise the risk of a deeper correction.”
Both perspectives align closely with our own.
Positioning for 2026
Our base-case scenario remains unchanged: gold is consolidating in preparation for a breakout to fresh all-time highs during the first half of 2026. Institutional surveys still reveal remarkably low portfolio allocations to the sector, while physical offtake – both official and private – continues to rise. History suggests that when these two forces eventually converge, price discovery tends to be rapid.
For investors and allocators, the current range offers an attractive entry window ahead of what is likely to be a seasonally strong period. For those already positioned, the discipline is straightforward: respect the trendline support, add on weakness to $4,000–$4,100 if presented, and allow the broader fundamental picture to do the heavy lifting.
From the dealing desk at Bullion Beasts, we continue to fill orders at the fastest pace in our history. The metal is moving from weak hands to strong hands – a process that has characterised every major precious-metals bull market of the past fifty years.
As always, we remain available to discuss allocation strategy, product selection and secure vaulting options. In a world of financial uncertainty, tangible assets have rarely appeared more compelling.
Wishing you a prosperous and peaceful close to 2025.
Keep shinning!
Bullion Beasts Team
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