Six regimes in fifty-five years

The long chart is the single most important exhibit in this study. Gold's 55-year history is not one market — it is six distinct regimes, each defined by a macro-political arrangement, and each transition violent^[1]. An investor who bought the 1980 top waited 27 years to break even in nominal terms — and never has in real terms at any point before 2008. An investor who dismissed gold in 2000 after twenty dead years missed a seven-fold re-rating. The lesson the data forces on you: the right question is never "what will gold do this year" — it is "which regime are we in, and what would end it?"

Three regularities survive across all six regimes. First, gold's bulls are monetary-credibility events, not inflation events per se. The 1970s, the 2000s and the 2020s each began with a credible challenge to the dollar-centric arrangement — Nixon closing the window, the Fed reflating serial bubbles, and the weaponization of reserves in 2022. Inflation alone (e.g. 1988–91) moved gold little. Second, the drawdowns are long and deep — the chart below shows −70% (1980s–90s) and −45% (2011–15); a 20–25% correction like the current one is routine inside ongoing bulls (1975–76: −44% mid-bull, then ×8). Third, each bull's marginal buyer is different — 1970s: Western retail and OPEC; 2000s: Western ETFs; 2020s: central banks and Asian households^[2]. Diagnose the marginal buyer correctly and the regime usually follows.

The current leg is best read on the trading chart: a grinding 2022–23 base under $2,100, acceleration through 2024–25 as central-bank buying compounded with Western ETF re-entry, the blow-off to $5,405 in January 2026, and a ~25% correction to ~$4,100 that began in late March^[3][4]. Note what the correction looks like in context — on the 15-year view it barely registers as a wiggle on a curve that quadrupled in four years.