From April 16 to 17, spot gold traded in a tight range of $4,780 to $4,800 per ounce, with the 16th closing basically flat at $4,785.57 and the 17th trading around $4,780 in the Asian session. On the 16th, Trump said the US and Iran were "very close to reaching an agreement," while also hinting that face-to-face negotiations could be resumed in Pakistan this weekend, and announced a 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon. After the news broke, gold prices did not see sharp swings; instead, they moved into a stalemate characterized by a "rally that won’t go up and a fall that won’t go deep."

The reason gold is "calm and unruffled" lies in bullish and bearish forces canceling each other out. On the bullish side, the U.S. Dollar Index hovered near a six-week low as rate-cut expectations receded. The dollar’s weakness directly boosted the purchasing power of gold priced in other currencies, providing basic support for gold prices. Meanwhile, the daily crossing volume through the Strait of Hormuz is only a small fraction of the more than 130 crossings before the war, and about one-fifth of global seaborne crude oil shipments remain in an effectively disrupted state. With energy supply uncertainty persisting, the shadow of inflation does not go away, and investors’ demand for medium- to long-term hedging with gold has not disappeared.

On the bearish side, Trump’s optimistic remarks eased the market’s extreme concerns about a full-scale escalation of the conflict, improving risk appetite; as a result, short-term safe-haven buying in gold naturally weakened. In addition, Chicago Fed President Goolsbee had previously said that if oil prices remain high, the Federal Reserve could delay interest rate cuts until 2027. Keeping rates at a high level increases the opportunity cost of holding gold, limiting the upside momentum of gold prices.

Looking deeper, the current gold price trend is going through a structural shift. Due to gold prices continuing to rise in recent years and positions becoming highly crowded, gold is starting to show the high-volatility characteristics typical of risk assets, and its traditional safe-haven logic of "buying in times of conflict that equals rising prices" has partially stopped working. At the same time, central banks have been net adding to gold holdings for 18 consecutive months, and long-term structural buying provides a solid bottom. The tug-of-war between the retreat of short-term safe-haven demand and long-term allocation needs together shape the current pattern of "stagnation at high levels" in gold prices. The market’s true pricing anchor has shifted from geopolitical sentiment to the inflation path and monetary policy direction. #创作者激励