As gold’s tumble continues, traders bet the pain may last for two more years

Cnbc ^ | 10th June 2026 | Oliver Rennick

[Cronos]

Turns out all that glitters is not gold.

Selling in the precious metal just keeps getting worse, with the GLD ETF now down 25% from its intraday record in February. Options trading in the fund has turned bearish in a hurry and is now pointing toward further downside.

Even after another 3% drop on Wednesday, traders sold more calls than they bought and of the $200 million in options premium traded, $130 million was tied to puts, according to data from ThinkOrSwim and SpotGamma. Of the top 10 contracts traded, eight were puts, and more than half of the put premium was traded at the ask or above, meaning the contracts were mostly bought.

The most popular put contract by volume in GLD is currently the in-the-money 380-strike expiring today. The second-most popular is the 240-strike expiring in June 2028 – at $11.50 per contract, that’s a deeply bearish bet that gold will fall another 40% over the next two years.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS:

[Cronos]

Three forces are driving the selloff. Rate expectations have shifted sharply, from two or three quarter-point cuts by year-end to now pricing in one quarter-point increase, raising the opportunity cost of holding an incomeless asset. The Iran war has pushed oil prices higher, feeding the inflation that prompted the rate repricing. And SpaceX's IPO on Friday is pulling capital toward equities, with Jefferies analyst Mohit Kumar describing the wave of mega IPOs from SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI as "a liquidity drain event in the near term."

Might be good to buy gold in September as it might, just might hit the lows then

[Equine1952]

My base price is 14.75/oz, silver at 17.45/oz. Think I’ll hold.

[Equine1952]

Sorry gold at 1475/00/oz. Damn. The other way sounded better. I’ll still hold.

[ChronicMA]

people mentally lock in a new higher price as “normal”

that is a mistake

until 2 years ago, gold was worth about 2000 for a long time

[Nateman]

I figured Gold was overpriced. The element Rhenium is more rare yet sells for much less. Gold only sells for more because of its history as money .

[Terry L Smith]

Oh well...what goes up must come down.

[Rockingham]

Moreover, with oil moving through the Gulf again, the dollar and the US economy are doing better. Gold has lost some of its allure as a counter dollar bet.

[KitJ]

I think my gold bought at $392-454/oz and silver at $4.54-18/oz is doing pretty well.

Will I sell? No, probably not. It’s inheritance for my kids. What am I going to do with it? Eat it?

Maybe we’ll cash in a few thousand and take our dream trip to Ireland or Japan or something.

Paper metals stocks have never meant anything to us. Hold the real thing in your hand. Beware that places like Colorado will charge tax if you convert metal to fiat currency. I don’t fully understand how metals can be taxed as income, and sales.

8% vigorish to the State. 12% Vig to Uncle Sugar. As reported, every $100 sold = about $what?

$100 - 8% = $92 - 12% = somewhere around eighty bucks.

That $100 coin is now worth what?

[Cronos]

“$454/oz “ — wasn’t that like 20 years ago?

Wow, today it’s like 8 times what you paid for it

I do note that’s slightly higher than an ETF which is 7.5 times growth.

In the years 2003 to 2018 I mostly invested in aggressive Mutual funds (some SME too) and in 2 or 3 stocks for companies I KNEW were undervalued - I don’t have enough knowledge to do that regularly. But since 2018 i’ve been moving to safer instruments like real estate and am looking at gold

[Equine1952]

The gold at $1475 an ounce and silver at 17.45 an ounce don’t mean nothing to me. It’s for my grandkids. The brass and lead is for me. It’ll help them get their inheritance. Fight, eff, or go for your gun. No body is walking out of here. Regards

[neverevergiveup]

People mentally lock in a new higher price as “normal”. That is a mistake.

I agree completely. There are few guarantees in life, and most investments are not among them. It used to be thought that NYC real estate was a guaranteed investment. Covid-19, and now Mamdani and his ilk have put a dent in that certainty.

There have been so many commercials pitching the purchase of gold over the past few years. A 25% drop for those who bought at its peak is not trivial.