Gold Breaks $4,500 Again As Momentum, Flows, And Geopolitics Collide
Key Points
- Gold tagged fresh records near $4,530 in thin year-end trading.
- ETF holdings rose into Christmas, hinting demand is broader than futures alone.
- The trend is strong, but daily momentum looks stretched and vulnerable to quick pullbacks.
Spot gold traded in the mid-$4,500s early Friday after touching a new all-time high around $4,530. February Comex futures hovered near $4,535.
The jump capped a steady seven-day climb: front-month futures rose from about $4,387 on Dec. 19 to roughly $4,528 by Dec. 25. Markets slowed on Dec. 24 after another record, then pushed higher again. A softer dollar and rate-cut expectations also supported the bid.
Liquidity has been the accelerant. Different feeds showed about 151,600 contracts traded on Dec. 24, while another widely followed tally put the day near 164,064 contracts.
By Dec. 25, volume had faded to roughly 6,800 contracts. Open interest around 500,163 contracts suggested positioning remained large even as holiday conditions thinned order books.
Analysts said market structure is doing as much work as the macro story. Kelvin Wong at OANDA called the run “momentum-driven” in “thin liquidity,” a setup that can keep prices rising but can also snap back.
Kitco analyst Jim Wyckoff described Dec. 24’s dip as mild profit-taking and consolidation after record highs. Flows stayed supportive. SPDR Gold Shares held about 1,068.27 tonnes as of Dec. 24. iShares Gold Trust reported roughly 492.64 tonnes, with about 6.55 million shares traded that day.
Zooming out, the World Gold Council said physically backed gold ETFs added about $5.2 billion in November, lifting global holdings to a record 3,932 tonnes.
London’s OTC market and Comex still dominate price discovery, but venues such as Shanghai and India’s MCX matter when physical demand shifts.
Geopolitics kept the hedge bid alive, with traders watching renewed U.S.–Venezuela friction and reports of a U.S. strike in northwest Nigeria.
Technically, the uptrend remains intact. Daily RSI is above 80. The 4-hour RSI sits in the high-60s and MACD momentum is fading. The record zone near $4,525–$4,531 is the key test. Support sits near $4,491, then $4,466 and the mid-$4,400s.
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