Gold Slips Below 4,700: What April’s Peak Is Telling Us
Gold is doing something it hasn’t done in over a year: declining for a third consecutive week.
The April futures contract settled near 4,729 on Friday, down from the April peak of 4,918 — a slide of nearly 4% that has caught much of the gold-bug community off guard. After a decade of faithful central-bank bid, the metal is suddenly facing its first real headwind: a dollar that won’t quit.
The dollar is the whole story
Strip away the noise and gold’s May slide maps almost perfectly onto the dollar’s spring rally. With EUR/USD falling from 1.17 and USD/JPY pressing toward 159, the greenback is soaking up safe-haven demand that might otherwise flow to bullion. Real yields have crept higher too, and nothing suppresses gold like a rising opportunity cost of holding it.
But here’s the nuance the permabears miss: the metal is still up massively from its 2024 lows, and central-bank buying — the structural pillar of this bull market — shows no sign of reversing. This looks like a correction within an uptrend, not a regime change.
Levels
Support sits at 4,645 (May’s first test) and then 4,522 (the April low). A break of the latter would open 4,400 and force a genuine reassessment. Resistance: 4,783, last week’s high.
Gold at 4,700 is neither cheap nor broken. It’s in the uncomfortable middle where discipline matters more than conviction.
Disclaimer: This is market commentary, not investment advice. Trading FX, commodities, equities and crypto carries substantial risk of loss.
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