AGE's Gold Commentary

AGE Gold Commentary is our regular report analyzing trends in precious metals and rare coins. We monitor domestic and international markets and extrapolate from our 30 years in metals to place current events into a hard asset perspective. View archives.

8/24/2026: Currency, bond instability driving gold

Source:

Gold and silver are surging again, fueled by major market interventions by the U.S government.

In the past three weeks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has intervened in two of the world's largest financial markets: first, the currency market by supporting the plunging Japanese yen; and now, the US bond market by attempting to contain rising U.S. Treasury yields.

These extraordinary moves suggest stress is building in the two largest global financial markets and natural markets forces are pushing them towards instability.

We haven't seen trust in the U.S. bond market fall like this since President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs in April 2025 made Treasury prices tumble and yields rise sharply. A week later, Bessent forced President Trump to rescind those tariffs due to surging bond market instability.

Gold jumped $500 following that earlier episode before reaching new record highs in early 2026. Now history may be rhyming. Gold has gained more than $600 in just three weeks, almost 15%, and silver has gained $13, or 20%, since Bessent's first intervention.

The bigger issue is that government interventions usually fail because they treat the symptoms, not the disease. Twenty-five years of increasing budget deficits have ballooned US debt to over $40 trillion, and sharply higher interest rates have raised payments on this debt to more $1.25 trillion per year. These growing debt and debt service problems are fast becoming intractable.

In this AGE Gold Commentary recorded Friday August 21, we analyze Bessent's interventionist moves that led to the latest precious metals price action.

We also update recent developments in energy markets, specifically diesel prices, which will most likely increase inflationary pressures as we move into the fall season—inflationary pressure that will probably add to the recent surge in demand for precious metals going forward.

You can also view this video on the AGE YouTube channel, which includes a transcript.

Sincerely,

Dana Samuelson
President