Gold Hit By Tech As Fed On Hold

Gold down even as Fed holds on likely tech-crash selling

The gold price dropped -2.7% to US$3,899/oz, even as the Fed remained on hold, as the tech crash has likely driven forced liquidations of stronger performing assets to cover losses, including the gold sector with its huge gains over the past two years.

Big Gold’s strong Q3/26 results continue

The strong Q3/26 results for Big Gold continued, with Agnico Eagle, Kinross and Alamos reporting with all three seeing a decline in production but also a rise in realized gold prices offsetting an increase in AISC and driving a wider operating spread.

Gold stocks decline as major sector rotation continues

The gold stocks dropped with the GDX down -3.9% and the GDXJ losing -4.4% as the tech slump continued, dragging down the Nasdaq -2.3%, although the S&P 500 declined just 0.8% and Russell 2000 actually rose 1.1% on a shift into other sectors.

Gold Hit By Tech As Fed On Hold

The gold price declined -2.7% to US$3,899/oz, down for a second week and breaking below the key US$4,000/oz benchmark for the first time since July 2026. The metal price and markets overall had edged up through to the US Fed rate decision in the middle of the week, which provided some relief as the central bank remained on hold. However, the markets slumped at the end of the week as the third quarter results of several major tech companies, strongly disappointed the markets, especially Intel, but also Alphabet (Google) and Amazon, which plunged -25.1%, -12.6% and -3.8%. While this dragged down the Nasdaq -2.3%, the S&P 500 dropped only -0.8%, and Russell 2000 index declined just -1.7%, indicating that the slump was mainly concentrated in the tech sector.

While the shift into defensives continued, with global consumer staples, healthcare and utilities up 1.1%, 2.9% and 1.6%, the gold sector was bypassed by the trend, as it has been for the past month. This has likely been because the tech crash has driven some funds into forced liquidations of holdings with strong gains to offset the losses in the sector. The funds that have had positions in the gold sector for just the past two years would be sitting on huge gains which would make them attractive targets for divestment, especially given the cooldown in the sector this year. The GDX ETF of gold producers has gained 129.8% since mid-2024 (and was up around 200% as recently as September 2026) and the metal is still up 60.6% since June 2024 (Figure 4). This has far outperformed all the major global sectors, and the other defensive sectors have been extremely muted, with utilities, healthcare and consumer staples, up just 32.7%, 20.0% and 16.1% since mid-2024. Even the tech sector, up 70.1% since mid-2024, has significantly lagged the gold sector boom.

The tech sector could continue to come down further if we assume that its valuations will converge towards other major global sectors, with the global tech, semiconductors and software price to book valuations at 10.3x, 10.0x and 7.4x (Figure 5). This is far ahead of the healthcare, consumer staples, utilities sectors at just 4.5x, 4.0x and 2.2x, and suggests that there may be room for the rotation to defensives to continue on a valuation basis, and even energy trades at just 2.5x after its major jump this year. The multiples for the major mining sectors all remain far below the levels for tech, and even the major defensives sectors, ranging from 2.0x3.0x after declining since the end of 2025. The gold sector has also not been the only mining segment to see a difficult October 2026, with all of the major ETFs declining significantly (Figure 6).

A particularly orderly gold sector sell-down

Further evidence that suggests the continued gold sell off may be more of a strategic move by funds than reflecting a specifically bearish stance on the sector by the market overall is how orderly it has been, which is shown by the ratio of the change in gold stock prices versus the metal price. Gold stocks have significant operating leverage, with costs relatively fixed short-term, and their prices tend to move at a multiple of the underlying metal price. While this ratio has extreme swings short-term, the long-term weekly average from 2006-2026 is 1.36x. Even if we remove major outliers, which mainly occur when the ratio spikes because the change in gold is near zero, it only declines marginally to 1.29%, indicating that on average, stocks in the sector move about 30% more than the change in the metal price.

While the average in 2026 has been relatively high at 2.46x, removing the major outliers it declines to just 1.54x, only moderately above the long-term average (Figure 7). Most of the major swings in the ratio this year occurred through to June 2026, and it has actually become remarkably steady for the past six weeks and quite close to the long-term average. This does not seem to indicate major distortions in the sector between stocks and metal price movements, and the declines of the past three weeks in gold have not been historically severe in percentage terms.

Big Gold Q3/26 strong results continue

While gold has declined, levels averaging around US$4,000/oz continue to be more than enough for strong profitability in the sector, with the realized prices for the Big Gold companies at around US$4,200/oz-US$4,300/oz so far in their Q3/26 results and still driving wide margins. This week Agnico Eagle, Kinross and Alamos all reported Q3/26, following Newmont last week, with most of the rest of the majors releasing results over the next two weeks.

Production declines continued, ranging from -8.4% to -16.0% year on year (Figure 8). While there was still strong revenue growth for three companies as this was offset by the rise in the realized gold price yoy, Kinross did see a -2% decline (Figure 9). While the rise in revenue translated to a large increase in net income for Newmont and Agnico Eagle, Alamos still saw a major decline, and Kinross was down given the low revenue growth (Figure 10). The realized gold price for all the companies increased substantially yoy ranging from 23%-27%, although this has declined from its peak in Q1/26 (Figure 11). There has been rising pressure on income from costs, with the AISC up substantially for all four companies, ranging from 20%-42% (Figure 12). However, this has still been far outpaced by the rise in gold, with the realized gold price to AISC spread at around US$2,300/oz for Newmont, Kinross and Alamos, with Agnico Eagle the major stand out at US$2,600/oz (Figure 13).

Major producers and most of TSXV gold decline

All the major producers and most of large TSXV gold dropped on the continued decline in the metal price (Figures 14, 15). For the TSXV gold companies operating mainly domestically, Osisko reported an update on construction progress at the Cariboo project, Banyan Gold reported drill results from the Airstrip Deposit of AurMac and Amex Gold released drill results from the Denise and Champagne zones of Perron (Figure 16).

Gold X2 announced an agreement with its subsidiaries for an NSR created by its subsidiary Goldshore Mining to be transferred to a subsidiary of Spinco, and then shares of Spinco spunout to Gold X2 shareholders. Sitka completed its 60k m drill program at RC Gold and appointed Mr. Tim Termuende to its Board of Directors. For the companies operating mainly internationally, Goldsky reported drill results from Rajapalot and Asante Gold reported that its senior lenders, its stream purchaser and its hedge counterparty had extended waivers to November 30, 2026 from October 31, 2026 previously (Figure 17).