WEEKLY · Gold Weekly
Gold Weekly 2026-W35: A Fresh High, Erased — a Hawkish Fed Frames the Week
Gold Weekly 2026-W35 (Aug 24-30)
Sources: LBMA official fixings + Bank of Taiwan gold passbook quotes (in-house gold-pipeline) + World Gold Council (WGC) + major media compilations Reporting period: August 24 to August 30, 2026 Gold prices trace back to our own pipeline; most are official real prices (LBMA fixings and Bank of Taiwan quotes)
I. In One Sentence: A Fresh High, Then All the Week's Gains Erased in Three Days
The week ended the way the previous one began: a spike, then a pullback. On Monday (Aug 24) the LBMA PM fixing touched $4,663.70/oz, a three-month high; but on Aug 28, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole remarks strengthened the dollar and pushed Treasury yields up, and gold dropped more than 3% in a single day, turning the week negative.
Friday's LBMA PM fixing closed at $4,562.75, roughly -2.2% from the high. On the spot side, gold fell from about $4,594 to near $4,460 on Aug 28 and eased further to $4,456 on Aug 29, a swing of about 4% over the week. Priced in New Taiwan dollars using Bank of Taiwan quotes: about NT$17,966/tael at Monday's high, NT$17,606/tael on Friday.
II. The Week in Numbers
International gold price (LBMA USD fix, USD/oz)
| Date | AM fix | PM fix | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 24 (Mon) | 4,634.20 | 4,663.70 | Week high; PM above $4,660 |
| Aug 25 (Tue) | 4,625.65 | 4,615.45 | Eased |
| Aug 26 (Wed) | 4,621.05 | 4,631.50 | Range-bound at the high |
| Aug 27 (Thu) | 4,594.95 | 4,568.95 | Softened |
| Aug 28 (Fri) | 4,602.00 | 4,562.75 | Week low; swoon after Warsh remarks |
- Week's LBMA PM: 4,663.70 → 4,562.75, about -2.2%.
- Aug 28 one-day plunge: spot fell from about $4,594 to near $4,460, down more than 3% in a day (Reuters / FXStreet).
Taiwan dollar gold price (Bank of Taiwan passbook, TWD/gram)
| Date | Bank of Taiwan quote (TWD/g) |
|---|---|
| Aug 20 | 4,626.0 |
| Aug 24 | 4,791.0 (week high) |
| Aug 25 | 4,778.0 |
| Aug 26 | 4,752.0 |
| Aug 27 | 4,710.0 |
| Aug 28 | 4,695.0 |
- Week's TWD gold: 4,791.0 → 4,695.0, about -2.0%.
- The TWD traded around 31.85 during the week and weakened to 31.68 on Aug 29. The TWD-denominated decline (-2.0%) was milder than the USD-denominated one (-2.2% to -3.2%), because TWD depreciation partly offset the drop in the dollar gold price.
III. What Moved the Market: One Hawkish Chair Stopped the Rally
The week had essentially one story: the Fed chair's tone.
- At Jackson Hole on Aug 28, Warsh centred his message on "getting inflation back to the 2% target," said summer PCE/CPI prints, while better than expected, "don't tell me the underlying trend has meaningfully improved," and signalled he would not rule out further tightening if inflation persists (Reuters, CNBC, FXStreet).
- The trigger chain is straightforward: a hawkish Warsh → a firmer dollar and higher Treasury yields → a higher-yielding environment is a headwind for a non-yielding asset like gold → gold falls.
- The 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.72% on Aug 28 (up 0.03pp MoM, 0.48pp YoY; TradingEconomics).
- The dollar index touched a three-month low of 98.76 on Aug 21, then rebounded after Warsh's tone turned hawkish late in the week.
Placing this in the year's arc helps show where we are. Gold closed 2026 at a historical high of $5,318 on Jan 29 (spot printed $5,589.38 intraday on Jan 28); a US-Iran conflict then pushed oil and inflation expectations higher while the Fed shifted toward rate-hike expectations, and gold fell for five months to a low of $3,986 on Jul 16; it rallied for three weeks and moved back above its 200-day average in the third week of August. As of Aug 27 gold closed at $4,610, 13.3% below its January high, 15.7% above its July low, and up about 6.6% for 2026 (Drawpie compilation).
Put simply, this week's decline is a pullback within an elevated range, not a trend reversal. But a single week of reversal is too little to judge direction; that requires looking at the full month and across weeks.
IV. What the Central Banks Are Doing: 289 Tonnes in Q2, a Record for the Quarter
While the Fed presses on rates, central banks keep buying gold on the other side, and that is this year's most notable structural variable.
- Q2 2026 central-bank net purchases of 289 tonnes, up 62% YoY, a record for the quarter (WGC, Gold Demand Trends Q2 2026, published Jul 30).
- Top five buyers in H1 2026 (WGC, as of H1): Poland leads with 82 tonnes (31t in Q1 + 51t in Q2), followed by Uzbekistan 41t, a central-bank reserve 40t, and Kazakhstan 27t; other net buyers include the Czech Republic, Singapore, Chile, Jordan, and Ghana.
- Some central banks turned sellers this quarter: Turkey (largest seller in Q1), Russia (cut 22 tonnes in Q2), and Azerbaijan, which trimmed the H1 total (State Street Monthly Gold Monitor).
- The longer-term structure: central banks have bought about 1,000 tonnes a year on average over the past four years, clearly faster than the ~500-tonne average of the prior decade (WGC, Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2026).
A note on the numbers: different sources report different year-over-year figures. The WGC official figure is 62%, while some media headlines cite 74%; we follow the WGC. Our own pipeline and the WGC also differ due to estimation points, and the two are not mixed directly.
View: Central-bank de-dollarisation and geopolitical hedging are the structural bid keeping gold near historical highs through 2026. That bid does not disappear because of one week of hawkish Fed language; it runs on a different timescale from the rate cycle. In the short term, the question is whether Warsh can contain inflation expectations; over the longer term, it is whether central banks keep swapping dollar reserves for gold.
V. Ahead
- Key watch: after Warsh's hawkish tone, markets are pricing in a greater chance of a September hike. If ISM, payrolls, and CPI data in the coming weeks confirm sticky inflation, a strong dollar plus high yields could keep pressuring gold.
- Support: the $4,456-4,480 zone from Aug 28-29 is the near-term line; a break below points to $4,400.
- Structural factors persist: central-bank buying, geopolitical risk (elevated oil and inflation expectations after the US-Iran conflict) remain in place; the medium-term tailwind is not gone because of one down week.
Disclaimer: This weekly is based on LBMA official fixings, Bank of Taiwan gold quotes, and WGC / major-media compilations. It is for data reference and market observation only and does not constitute investment advice or price forecasts. Gold is volatile; actual moves are driven by many factors.
Sources: LBMA official fixings; Bank of Taiwan gold passbook quotes (in-house gold-pipeline); World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q2 2026 and Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2026; Reuters; CNBC; FXStreet; TradingEconomics; State Street Monthly Gold Monitor; Drawpie.
Author: Noah ｜ 資產百科專欄
Research & data: Emma (macro researcher), Vera (fact-check)