Gold Closed the Week Under $4,000. Wall Street Is Bearish. Main Street Isn't.

Gold spent Friday at about $3,996 an ounce. It touched $4,190 early Monday. That is a loss of roughly 4% in one week, and $4,000 is a round number a lot of stackers were watching.

Kitco has spot gold down 4.12% on the week, with a Monday high of $4,190.17 and a low of $3,975.10. FXStreet has the weekly loss at almost 3.9%. The sources differ by a few tenths. Either way, it was a bad week.

Who Is Selling, and Why

Oil, mostly. FXStreet points to reports that the US and Israel may attack Iran after the midterms, attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and Houthi-Saudi exchanges of fire. Kitco had Brent near $117 on Friday, its highest in more than four years.

Normally that is a gold story. Fear goes up, gold goes up. Not this time. Kitco’s own explanation: higher oil raises inflation and rate-hike worries, and that “competing influence has limited bullion’s safe-haven response.” Fear is on the menu. The Fed is eating the lunch.

FXStreet has December hike odds at 78% per Prime Terminal, and says markets have removed an October hike. The Fed meets next week.

The Number I Keep Coming Back To

Kitco asked two groups what happens next. Seventeen Wall Street analysts: 4 (24%) expect gold to rise, 7 (41%) expect declines, and 6 (35%) see sideways trade or can’t call it. Then 161 Main Street voters in Kitco’s poll: 67 (42%) expect a rise, 41 (26%) expect more losses, and 53 (33%) expect consolidation.

Read that again. The professionals lean down. The amateurs lean up. The sample sizes are small and the Main Street poll is a self-selected website vote, so don’t treat it as science. But the gap is real, and I’ve been on the wrong side of “the pros are bearish” enough times to know it settles nothing.

The experts Kitco quoted don’t agree either. BCA’s Roukaya Ibrahim called Thursday’s selling idiosyncratic and gold’s distance from its 200-day average oversold. Saxo’s Ole Hansen said speculative positioning may be near an extreme, with hedge funds approaching a net short. U.S. Bank’s Rob Haworth expects continued pressure and a December hike.

The Bottom Line

Nobody knows. That is the honest read. The analysts who say oversold and the analysts who say more pain are both looking at the same chart.

What you can see: next week is loaded. The Fed decides Wednesday, and September PCE inflation lands Thursday, per Kitco. Those two events will do more to the price than any survey.

If you buy on a schedule, none of this changes your schedule. A lower price means more ounces for the same dollars. It does not mean you timed anything. Watch the Fed, watch oil, and ignore anyone, me included, who sounds sure.