Something changed in the gold market in August.
Average daily trading volume increased 21% in a single month to $430 billion per day.
That number deserves some attention. Gold is not some small corner of the commodity market. Hundreds of billions of dollars now change hands across the global gold market every day.
And the increase in activity wasn’t concentrated in just one place.
OTC volumes rose 10%. Exchange-traded activity jumped 33%. COMEX derivatives increased 28%, while futures trading in Shanghai surged 48%. Even gold ETF trading volumes climbed 83%.
What I find particularly interesting is the timing.
Gold rose 13% during August, while global gold ETFs attracted $18 billion and increased their physical holdings by 121 tonnes to a record 4,189 tonnes.
So this wasn’t simply a rising price in a quiet market.
More capital was moving through virtually every major part of the gold market at the same time.
For years, gold was easy for many investors to ignore. It paid no interest, technology was more exciting, and there always seemed to be another asset promising better returns.
Today, hundreds of billions of dollars are traded in the gold market every day, ETF holdings are at a record, and activity is accelerating simultaneously in London, New York, and Shanghai.
Gold may be an asset thousands of years old.
The market around it certainly isn’t sleeping.
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