Gold's $4,000 skirmish continues as it eyes worst quarter in 13 years

By Jamie Chisholm

The precious metal may have the calendar on its side, according to analyst

Gold has had a bad second quarter of 2026

A battle between gold bugs and bullion bears appeared to be coalescing around the $4,000 an ounce mark on Tuesday, as the precious metal is on track to register its worst quarter in 13 years.

The front-month Comex gold future (GC00) dipped near to $3,975 late Monday, its lowest price of 2026, but by the early hours of Tuesday was recovering to trade around $4,040.

Since hitting a record high of $5,318 at the end of January, boosted by a weaker dollar, central bank buying and a surge in interest from retail investors, the yellow metal has shed almost a quarter of its value as fears of Federal Reserve interest-rate rises lifted the greenback, and many smaller investors moved on to other speculative bets.

The drop to just above the $4,000 level leaves gold down around 13% for the second quarter, its biggest quarterly pullback since the second quarter of 2013, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

To gold price optimists the $4,000 marker represents a big round-number level to be defended, while those more wary about the precious metals' prospects perceive it as a potential trap door below which further selling my be triggered.

Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo, is among those who thinks gold remains particularly sensitive to investor concerns that inflationary pressures - caused of late by higher oil prices - will cause the Fed to raise rates.

"Gold's rebound above $4,000 appears to reflect a combination of short covering after the break below last week's low at $3,960 failed to attract sustained follow-through selling, together with some bottom fishing as energy prices continue to ease amid the risk of a short-term glut helping to ease inflation worries further," said Hansen in a message on X on Tuesday.

Gold price. Source: Saxo.

However, he added that for investors to become more confident about going long gold again "prices first need to break above $4,100 before it is reasonable to consider that a low may have been established."

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, described $4,000 as a "critical support," and that as long as gold had not recovered $4,115 it remained vulnerable to a deeper sell-off, with the next target for bears at at $3,680, "corresponding to the long-term uptrend base and the 50% retracement."

Still, she believes that for long-term investors, gold remains an attractive asset. "Many central banks sold part of their gold holdings during the last quarter to offset the energy price spike, and they will eventually need to replenish those reserves. The question is: at what price?," said Ozkardeskaya.

One factor that may help the gold price in the short term is seasonal support, according to Jay Kaeppel, senior research analyst at Sentimentrader. He presents the chart below that shows gold tends to have a good run over the year's 122nd to 170th trading days, which in 2026 runs from the close on June 29 through the close on Sept 4.

Silver, which tends to trade in line with gold, has also had a terrible quarter. The Comex silver future (SI00) was trading below $60 an ounce on Tuesday, less than half the intraday record high touched in January. Silver's second-quarter retreat of around 22% is also the worst performance since 2023.

-Jamie Chisholm

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06-30-26 0555ET