Is the gold market headed for a decline?

[ndutndut]

In my opinion, Russia gold sales are not an indicator that the gold market will drop. Besides, most of the gold sold by Russia's central bank is sold to domestic banks, and the gold sales carried out by Russia central bank were only 44 tons, which is relatively small compared to the total reserves they have. 

We also know that Russia economy has been under pressure and sanctions during the war against Ukraine. Besides, Russia gold sales are of course aimed at covering the budget deficit. So I'm confident that gold prices won't fall, especially since almost every country uses gold as their national reserve. So this isn't a bearish signal for global gold even if Russia central bank sells gold, other central banks will still continue buying gold.

[Dogedegen]

Russia's budget deficit stood at about 6.5 trillion rubles in a span of seven months. Oil and gas revenues fell by approximately 17% year-on-year. The expectations for GDP growth were cut from more than 2% to essentially flat. Some quarters even showed contraction. This economy is spending itself into a war.

And that is exactly what the gold sale is. It is not a signal about gold's future price. It is a warning of Russia's financial state now. They sold into the domestic market (to Russian banks, settled in rubles and yuan). They are literally unable to access international markets. Since 2022, half their foreign reserves are still frozen in Western institutions. The only asset which is literally there in Moscow and can be liquidated without anyone's consent is gold. So they are spending the furniture.

That is not true, don't fall for easy misinformation.
.....

To see this for yourself, just listen to the speeches by Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina. And take a look at the financial reports. Those figures are cited there, and she herself has highlighted the challenges that already exist and will arise in the future. 
Plus, we must remember that after 2022, "Russia’s thriving economy", or more precisely, many of its indicators, were unexpectedly classified, including many indicators of economic quality. There were also two instances where the logic behind the calculation of key indicators was distorted in order to soften their results. And of course, the icing on the cake is what’s called "newspeak" - new expressions that clearly avoid mentioning negative trends. For example, this is now often used in official channels to conceal the real situation. Read the real examples—what do you think of how the information is presented?
Negative growth / Negative dynamics -a decline in economic indicators or a drop in GDP.
Price correction / Price change - an increase in the cost of goods and tariffs.
Workforce reduction   - employee layoffs or staff cuts.
Structural restructuring / Transformation - an economic crisis caused by sanctions and isolation.
Parallel imports - the import of foreign goods into the country without the rights holder’s permission (legalized gray imports).

By analogy, in another field, when Russian oil refineries were damaged, this was described as "rapid oxidation of hydrocarbons with the release of thermal energy" 

I think you maybe misunderstood what I wanted to say, I am not trying to claim that they do not have big challenges! But that is not the same as claiming look their debt is high so they have to do this, they are separate things. This is why I have brought the data relating to budget deficits from other countries to make a comparison that shows that things are not as bad as they could be! Also we have to be careful about this data, even if all countries try to manipulate it a little bit the data from countries like Russia and China is much more suspect. They will try to hide and manipulate it much more when things are difficult and challenging. So the reality there might be worse than it seems, but the data for now does not support that these actions are directly related to the budget deficit or the total debt of the country. I am not particularly fond of these countries for many reasons, but I try to keep claims accurate and look for data that supports it. You could ask an AI directly if you believe that these actions are related to the debt or the deficit, but the answer is not going to be positive.

So it would be more correct to say something like this could be related to the deficit, but the data that we have for now does not provide enough evidence to make this an undeniable claim. I hope I made myself more clear.

[wiss19]

Even though the prices of gold has been declining ever since gold reached their highest price level many months ago, I think gold are still a great form of investment especially for investors who seeks to create a diversified portfolio across all different types of investment. With the war in Iran still at a stalemate and the war spreading across to other middle east countries. The gold market are still a good alternative choice to invest some money into it as once the prices of oil starts to drop after the war ends, the gold market might stand to benefits from it.

It really is. While it may not look great right now, over the long term it will recover and go up. The advantage we have right now is that we are in the Bitcoin world; not everyone in the world likes or invests in Bitcoin, we do. That means we already have something better than gold. If you invest in Bitcoin right now when it is low, you are going to profit from it later on. However, if you are not a Bitcoin person, then you are going to end up with a great return without a doubt with gold as well.

Because gold has gone down a lot during this past period, like for the past 6+ months it has been going down, which means that if you invest in it right now, then you are going to end up with a great return without a doubt. The best-case scenario is Bitcoin; the alternative best case is gold. Gold will go back up because there is no reason why we should be expecting this to be changing anytime soon; we should be able to see this becoming something that would be great.

[STT]

There's no real decline that I can see underway, the pullback gold has should increase confidence because no market should always be going up & not at the rate gold was gaining.   At present Dollar is weaker and Yen also along with most FIAT currencies that I can see, inflation is apparent.

  My general take on the chart is that the price action is familiar, we have seen lows match the sell of last Autumn and finding those prices once again as support is a bullish sign to get involved rather then the opposite.
   Russia might be important perhaps but its one country and a large part of gold strength is its usage worldwide not selectively, if that werent true we'd rank platinum over gold and other precious metals but gold is distributed widely so it has this status universally.

[DrBeer]

Russia's budget deficit stood at about 6.5 trillion rubles in a span of seven months. Oil and gas revenues fell by approximately 17% year-on-year. The expectations for GDP growth were cut from more than 2% to essentially flat. Some quarters even showed contraction. This economy is spending itself into a war.

And that is exactly what the gold sale is. It is not a signal about gold's future price. It is a warning of Russia's financial state now. They sold into the domestic market (to Russian banks, settled in rubles and yuan). They are literally unable to access international markets. Since 2022, half their foreign reserves are still frozen in Western institutions. The only asset which is literally there in Moscow and can be liquidated without anyone's consent is gold. So they are spending the furniture.

That is not true, don't fall for easy misinformation.
.....

To see this for yourself, just listen to the speeches by Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina. And take a look at the financial reports. Those figures are cited there, and she herself has highlighted the challenges that already exist and will arise in the future. 
Plus, we must remember that after 2022, "Russia’s thriving economy", or more precisely, many of its indicators, were unexpectedly classified, including many indicators of economic quality. There were also two instances where the logic behind the calculation of key indicators was distorted in order to soften their results. And of course, the icing on the cake is what’s called "newspeak" - new expressions that clearly avoid mentioning negative trends. For example, this is now often used in official channels to conceal the real situation. Read the real examples—what do you think of how the information is presented?
Negative growth / Negative dynamics -a decline in economic indicators or a drop in GDP.
Price correction / Price change - an increase in the cost of goods and tariffs.
Workforce reduction   - employee layoffs or staff cuts.
Structural restructuring / Transformation - an economic crisis caused by sanctions and isolation.
Parallel imports - the import of foreign goods into the country without the rights holder’s permission (legalized gray imports).

By analogy, in another field, when Russian oil refineries were damaged, this was described as "rapid oxidation of hydrocarbons with the release of thermal energy" 

I think you maybe misunderstood what I wanted to say, I am not trying to claim that they do not have big challenges! But that is not the same as claiming look their debt is high so they have to do this, they are separate things. This is why I have brought the data relating to budget deficits from other countries to make a comparison that shows that things are not as bad as they could be! Also we have to be careful about this data, even if all countries try to manipulate it a little bit the data from countries like Russia and China is much more suspect. They will try to hide and manipulate it much more when things are difficult and challenging. So the reality there might be worse than it seems, but the data for now does not support that these actions are directly related to the budget deficit or the total debt of the country. I am not particularly fond of these countries for many reasons, but I try to keep claims accurate and look for data that supports it. You could ask an AI directly if you believe that these actions are related to the debt or the deficit, but the answer is not going to be positive.

So it would be more correct to say something like this could be related to the deficit, but the data that we have for now does not provide enough evidence to make this an undeniable claim. I hope I made myself more clear.

Thank you for the clarification,  it turns out I did indeed misunderstand the context of your response.
But let me clarify: there are a sufficient number of indicators that point to real problems.
- The loss of markets that used to account for up to half of budget revenue. For example, the gas sector, the oil sector, and the military-industrial complex.
- The concealment of most key economic indicators—or, more precisely, indicators of the economy’s efficiency.
- The systematic sell-off of foreign exchange reserves.
- Tax increases (by the way, there’s a very high probability of another tax hike at the end of this year)
- And perhaps the best one of all: official statistics! "Russia’s federal budget deficit amounted to 6.45 trillion rubles.", followed by explanations of this OFFICIAL figure. Given what we know about regular manipulation and lies, we can safely assume that the actual deficit is already significantly higher. Link to the Kremlin’s official channel: https://www.rbc.ru/economics/11/08/2026/6a7b3c5f9a7947b8198d577e

P.S. Russia’s planned annual budget deficit was 3.786 trillion rubles (or 1.6% of GDP)... Do the math yourself....

[Dogedegen]

It really is. While it may not look great right now, over the long term it will recover and go up. The advantage we have right now is that we are in the Bitcoin world; not everyone in the world likes or invests in Bitcoin, we do. That means we already have something better than gold. If you invest in Bitcoin right now when it is low, you are going to profit from it later on. However, if you are not a Bitcoin person, then you are going to end up with a great return without a doubt with gold as well.

Because gold has gone down a lot during this past period, like for the past 6+ months it has been going down, which means that if you invest in it right now, then you are going to end up with a great return without a doubt. The best-case scenario is Bitcoin; the alternative best case is gold. Gold will go back up because there is no reason why we should be expecting this to be changing anytime soon; we should be able to see this becoming something that would be great.

Nothing is guaranteed and it is always a question of how up does it go. Gold has a very long history of market reliability, but you can't simply rely on this as your main measure of the future. All it would take is for something huge to change once and you could be left stranded and lose a lot of money. Let's take some crazy example and ignore how realistic it is, let's say that some chemist finally finds a way to transmute another material into gold or produce gold for cheap. What would happen to the price of gold currently or in the future? There is also plenty of gold in space or even simply we could find substitutes for things where it is used the most. Then when it comes to the price people very often completely forget about inflation. If you factor in for the inflation, then the price movements of gold have not been that great. If you have made 100% return over 15 years it is not good if the real inflation was 75% or more.

There's no real decline that I can see underway, the pullback gold has should increase confidence because no market should always be going up & not at the rate gold was gaining.   At present Dollar is weaker and Yen also along with most FIAT currencies that I can see, inflation is apparent.

  My general take on the chart is that the price action is familiar, we have seen lows match the sell of last Autumn and finding those prices once again as support is a bullish sign to get involved rather then the opposite.
   Russia might be important perhaps but its one country and a large part of gold strength is its usage worldwide not selectively, if that werent true we'd rank platinum over gold and other precious metals but gold is distributed widely so it has this status universally.

Well if you zoom out and look at very long cycles then you could say that it is never in a decline, I don't think that way of looking at things is correct. Someone could say Bitcoin also was not recently in a decline if they look at the 10 year period. A pullback is a temporary decline, if it is sustained then it becomes something else but it is still a decline.

Thank you for the clarification,  it turns out I did indeed misunderstand the context of your response.
But let me clarify: there are a sufficient number of indicators that point to real problems.
- The loss of markets that used to account for up to half of budget revenue. For example, the gas sector, the oil sector, and the military-industrial complex.
- The concealment of most key economic indicators—or, more precisely, indicators of the economy’s efficiency.
- The systematic sell-off of foreign exchange reserves.
- Tax increases (by the way, there’s a very high probability of another tax hike at the end of this year)
- And perhaps the best one of all: official statistics! "Russia’s federal budget deficit amounted to 6.45 trillion rubles.", followed by explanations of this OFFICIAL figure. Given what we know about regular manipulation and lies, we can safely assume that the actual deficit is already significantly higher. Link to the Kremlin’s official channel: https://www.rbc.ru/economics/11/08/2026/6a7b3c5f9a7947b8198d577e

P.S. Russia’s planned annual budget deficit was 3.786 trillion rubles (or 1.6% of GDP)... Do the math yourself....

Thank you for sharing some more point, they have a lot of problems and the future is unclear for now. I try to do more observing and just watch what is happening until there is data that confirms something to be a fact, but for people that want to speculate they just need to be careful how they deliver their opinion because it is not the same. With the good points that you have provided here we could reasonably say that it seems probable or likely that they made these sales to cover the deficit but we can't say that it is definitely a fact yet. Whatever happens with the war and the country, we will find out in the future in some way the truth about these events.

[Out of mind]

Every country in the world has stored gold in their reserves in order to change their economic position. However, since Russia has sold a lot of gold, which is almost too much, although this matter depends on it, I do not think it has much impact on the world gold market. If one country sells gold, all other countries in the world have a lot of gold, so the price of gold will not decrease in the future, but it may decrease for a while. However, if Russia continues to sell its gold continuously, it will have some impact on the price.
However, all other developed countries in the world are still investing in gold and keeping it in the reserve, which still gives us more assurance that the price of gold will increase in the future. However, if a country sells a large amount of gold, it may be for the purpose of strengthening the economic position of that country or it may sell it for any necessary purpose. Since the government has sold gold, there may be some big plan in it, the price of gold is now very high, which is why Russia is going to sell gold to strengthen their economic position. However, most countries in the world still have their gold reserves and have not sold them, but the price will definitely increase more in the future.

[sidrabtc]

Gold is always having a few advantages just because of this people's trust and never fear of storing this Russian sale is surely the biggest one, but still the market is stable and has nothing to impact this, making things more confidential for investors. This can't happen with any other metal or thing because all understand gold is forever.
Despite having too many issues and troubles, things are going well for this Bitcoin's mass adoption, and a few strict policies from many countries bring this on decline, but this case has never been with gold because no country fears this in the long run; gold could stay ahead and never decline.
Many countries have enough reserves; these are going to keep them stable, and they could be able to handle things while there could be any big trouble around them. Demand could never drop; this will help to keep prices on the rise.

[Porfirii]

There's no real decline that I can see underway, the pullback gold has should increase confidence because no market should always be going up & not at the rate gold was gaining.   At present Dollar is weaker and Yen also along with most FIAT currencies that I can see, inflation is apparent.
-snip-

Perhaps in that case we should talk about whether we think the dollar and other major national currencies will continue to weaken, rather than whether the value of gold will rise. Because it is no longer just a question of this asset, (yes, whose rise has been spectacular) but that we are experiencing inflation at an almost global level that seems to have no signs of stopping anytime soon. It is not the only factor, but if the value of the dollar continues to fall, it is a strong reason that would put pressure on the price of gold upwards.

[Taskford]

There's no real decline that I can see underway, the pullback gold has should increase confidence because no market should always be going up & not at the rate gold was gaining.   At present Dollar is weaker and Yen also along with most FIAT currencies that I can see, inflation is apparent.
-snip-

Perhaps in that case we should talk about whether we think the dollar and other major national currencies will continue to weaken, rather than whether the value of gold will rise. Because it is no longer just a question of this asset, (yes, whose rise has been spectacular) but that we are experiencing inflation at an almost global level that seems to have no signs of stopping anytime soon. It is not the only factor, but if the value of the dollar continues to fall, it is a strong reason that would put pressure on the price of gold upwards.

Maybe those changes happen not because of the gold itself, but rather on the weakness of the fiat system.

When government starts to print lots of fiat as result those currency slowly weakens. In that situation, usually those asset which have fix supply usually goes up. Then gold is the one just got exposure on this.

What going to happen if situation slowly getting to worse. Many people slowly shift their trust to currencies to those asset which have tendency to get scarce, that situation puts long term pressure to all those hard asset we know and not only with gold.