DATA & METHOD

Data and method

What this site measures, where the data comes from and how it is judged. A hobby site run by an individual; not investment advice.

Source status

Scrapers and APIs break silently. If a source's last success is old, its series are stale too.

Data sources

Prices: Gold and silver futures (COMEX, Yahoo Finance). Futures stand in for the LBMA price, which is paid data.
Macro: US 10-year real yield, breakeven inflation, 2/10-year yields and the dollar index (FRED).
Positioning: Managed money net position in COMEX gold (CFTC, as of Tuesday, published Friday).
Central banks: Net buying and the number of buyers are aggregated from official gold holdings of about 100 countries (IMF IRFCL). Observations that look like unit errors (holdings above 9,000t, monthly changes above 150t) are excluded and listed. Months not yet reported by enough countries are left out. China's SAFE figures are shown too.
ETFs and physical: GLD and IAU holdings and North American ETF monthly flows, London vault holdings (LBMA), and the Shanghai premium (Shanghai Gold Benchmark × CNY − COMEX futures, 5-day average, approximate).
Tether: Precious metals in USDT reserves (the amount in each quarterly attestation, converted to tonnes at the gold price on the report date; excludes gold held on Tether's own account) and the gold backing the XAUT token (Tether's transparency page).
US fiscal: Interest cost / receipts, budget balance, debt outstanding and the share of bills (US Treasury Fiscal Data, FRED).
Treasury demand: 10-year term premium (NY Fed ACM), bid-to-cover and indirect share at 10- and 30-year auctions, TIC and NY Fed custody holdings.
Not yet covered: COMEX inventories (access refused), Swiss customs data, European ETF flows and auction tails.

Change points and falsification

Tailwinds and headwinds: each indicator has a direction (whether a rise is good or bad for gold) and is judged by its current move. Real yields, the dollar and ETF holdings use the change over 3 months (a move beyond 0.5 standard deviations of past 3-month changes counts); flows such as central bank buying and ETF inflows use their position in the past 3 years (above the 60th or below the 40th percentile). Prices and model values, whose direction is hard to judge, are shown for reference only.

Change points: when the latest value enters the top or bottom 10% of the past 3 years (only the entering observation counts as new), or when the change exceeds 2 standard deviations of changes over the past 3 years.

Falsification (warning when three or more are lit):

Central bank buying (IMF aggregate, 3-month average) falls below the bottom 20% of the past 2 years
The 60-day average structural premium is below its level 3 months earlier
Three straight months of outflows from North American ETFs (GLD + IAU; Europe not covered)
The 50-day average of the US 10-year real yield is above its 200-day average

Price forecasts: statements by institutions and individuals are found by web search, and only those whose figure is mechanically confirmed on the source page are listed. Point and average forecasts count as hits within ±5%, ranges when inside the range, and individuals' targets if reached at least once before the deadline; forecasts with no deadline are not counted.

Report review: AI reads each new report and checks the claim, the figures cited and their sources, changes from the previous edition, gaps in logic, and consistency with this site's indicators. It also judges whether the report is positive or negative for gold, whether it is more bullish or bearish than the previous edition, and gives a one-line takeaway for gold investors. The same figures are taken from every edition to show trends, and only figures confirmed in the source text are shown. Summaries and judgements are AI-generated and may contain errors.

Operator

Gold Premise Watch is part of After Deal, a small collection of investment research sites run by an individual as a hobby.

Operator: the operator of After Deal (an individual)
The site has no connection with any organisation, including the operator's employer, and uses none of its work product or data.
Nothing on this site is investment advice. Investment decisions are your own responsibility.
Data belongs to each publisher and may contain errors or delays in collection or calculation. Includes AI-generated summaries, translations and judgements.

Corrections and questions are welcome through the contact form. / About After Deal