China Has Already Matched Last Year's Gold Import Demand

[00:00:00]John Paulson became a household name after betting that mortgage debt was egregiously mispriced during the housing bubble. After those days, he turned to gold betting that fiscal and monetary stimulus would devalue the dollar. And as you can see from the chart here, since 2009 when he launched that bet, the price of gold has quadrupled. And Paulson is now pressing the bet, now set to become co-chair of Novagold, whose shares are up 3 and 1/2% on this news today. As gold is about a thousand dollars or so off its highs this year, this parabolic move had everyone captivated. Now it's undergone a bit of a reset. Um, do you have conviction that 5,000, 10, what where is is gold going?

[00:00:38]And is it still driven by the same forces that you originally identified, you know, years ago?

[00:00:42]>> Yes, great question. It's true it's come off a little bit from its high this year, but it's also up 20 20 plus over 20% over the last year. So, I do think we're in the the, you know, beginnings or the early stages of a long-term bull market for gold. And gold is becoming, you know, the most sought-after reserve currency in the world, replacing fiat currencies. So, as people lose faith in paper currencies, gold as an alternative will continue to grow. And the demand for central banks, for instance, has stayed strong as has the private sector.

[00:01:22]So, I think the trend of gold will continue to be on the upside.

[00:01:27]>> Are there any other ways to express, you know, this is a very common and popular view, especially among younger investors. This was a Bitcoin um kind of original motivation and things like that. The idea that dollar debasement is happening, that you have to protect yourself from it. You know, a lot of us can sit in the US and in a way not, you know, we've been I guess if you're an asset owner, your real estate prices go up, your stock prices go up. You know, yes, inflation has been a factor as well, but are there any other ways that you would want to express this point of view?

[00:01:55]>> I I the greatest way to invest is to invest in early stage gold stocks. So, Novagold, the reason why we're so focused on Novagold and why we announced the merger today, is Novagold has 40 million oz of gold indicated and measured resources and reserves.

[00:02:15]>> And if you somehow mined every one of those 40 million troy oz of gold, it would fall short of the amount of gold China alone is on pace to import this year.

[00:02:25]As the bottom half of this 21st century bullion versus gold miners chart suggests, gold bullion for the last more than 2 and 1/2 decades has outperformed gold miners overall.

[00:02:35]When the blue line rises, miners are outperforming, and when it falls, bullion has been better.

[00:02:41]The same general statement can be overlaid on Novagold with gold bullion outperforming Mr. Paulson's since 2010 gold miner bet, which he now sits as co-chairman of.

[00:02:52]Back to Chinese gold import figures, now updated through the first half of the year.

[00:02:57]Chinese love a good gold spot price sale, and they have been buying in higher volumes, especially when given the opportunity of late. Currently [clears throat] on pace to already pass last year's gold imports by the end of this month, July.

[00:03:11]This local long-term Chinese gold price chart illustrates this buy low, stack high Chinese phenomenon.

[00:03:17]In the gold price lows of late 2015 near 1,050 an oz in fiat US dollars, the Chinese imported over 2,000 tons of gold that year with an outrageous gold housewife buying to close the year.

[00:03:31]Cut to today's Chinese gold market following the recent price correction since February 2026, we have a market that used to be dominated by high-grade gold jewelry, which is now pivoted to favor lower premium fine gold bullion instead.

[00:03:47]And each month that has passed in this current gold price correction, the Chinese have been buying the gold price dip in historically heavy volumes.

[00:03:55]In a further sign that the Chinese are moving to become larger players in the international gold market, today being July 24th, 2026, was the recently often pumped day when Chinese bank policy changes have closed down interbank retail paper gold and silver and other precious metals trading accounts.

[00:04:14]Perhaps some of those traders may buy bullion instead, but we'll also keep an eye on any increases in Shanghai Futures Exchange gold and silver trading volumes, as surely many of those retail precious metal paper traders will be migrating there for their gambling day trading leverage needs.

[00:04:32]Another important development in that side of the world's largest physical gold trade is that Hong Kong has recently announced plans to tenfold their airport-adjacent gold vault storage and logistics capacity within the coming 3 years.

[00:04:48]Meanwhile, ironically, over here in the often paper mache fiat financialized Western world, we now have opaque online betting houses looking to open 24/7 futures or swaps loosely tied to the gold and silver price for the weekend traders.

[00:05:04]Seeing oncoming competition for Western paper precious metals trading, it's no surprise to see CME Group's COMEX today announce micro 1-oz paper gold futures now trading live 24/7.

[00:05:15]Not yet offering levered 24/7 micro paper silver, but won't be long from now.

[00:05:22]I accidentally clicked on one of their links and they've been chasing me around the internet with advertisements as they try and get paper commodity trading to go retail, right next to your other favorite gambling phone apps.

[00:05:33]We've seen this kind of levered phantom paper gold trading in the United States before.

[00:05:38]A century prior to the 1970s gold bull, levered paper gold speculation took the former fiat greenback with it as gold and silver melted up in prices during a bull market mania that occurred toward the end of the US Civil War.

[00:05:53]They too also had memes back then.

[00:05:55]This one illustrated the typical end games for paper stackers during currency fallouts.

[00:06:01]So now with our handy smartphone apps for price gambling, we'll do it again again, but this time seems it's going to be worldwide 24/7.

[00:06:09]We'll be right back with this week's price action and further gold and silver related news.

[00:06:17]>> Hello, this is James Anderson on behalf of SD Bullion. Smash like button if you enjoy these bullion market updates, and be sure to visit sdbullion.com/sweepstakes to enter our free silver monster box giveaway.

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[00:06:37]Trusted by hundreds of thousands, sdbullion.com, where America buys physical gold [music] and silver.

[00:06:51]>> The silver and gold markets moved a bit higher on the week. The spot silver price closed the week at $58.11 an ounce bid. The spot gold price finished the week at 4,055 an ounce bid.

[00:07:01]The spot gold silver ratio ended this week a bit lower at 69 oz of spot silver to afford 1 oz of spot gold.

[00:07:08]Low to near no silver imports for India continue as we head towards festival season in the fall, keeping the local price premiums above Western world price benchmarks ongoing.

[00:07:19]Much of India's silver investment demand market is tied into their near 14 or so unsecured silver ETFs, ETPs, and silver savings schemes.

[00:07:29]Much of the selling there seems to have subsided with silver price dip buying on net seeming to have come back.

[00:07:36]And as you can see in terms of capital inflows and inventory levels have been rising of late.

[00:07:42]Also out of India about 10 days ago, there was a pretty good article highlighting the big question facing the US debt markets to come.

[00:07:49]Within the article, which I'll backlink in the show notes below, the author points out that the US policymakers are most likely going to have to use a similar financial repression tactic implemented after World War II, when our then debt-to-GDP had also blown out to about 130% as it is today.

[00:08:08]Keeping interest rates artificially low, below real inflation for decades to come, while also forcing US banks to buy and hold US Treasuries in high reserves by law.

[00:08:20]After all, the former world reserve currency, the fiat British pound, has been through such and it's still around.

[00:08:26]So goes the hope that the US, too, will be able to muddle through this coming big policy changes without legally defaulting on the unpayable promise piles made to date and yet to come.

[00:08:38]So, yeah.

[00:08:39]I'm not giving any guesses to the long-term outcome, but I have my hunch, and during this current correction as it stands, uh I'm just going to continue dollar cost averaging more troy ounces in weight.

[00:08:50]If you two are in the market to add to your bullion positions, be sure to visit sdbullion.com's deals page this week.

[00:08:56]There are platinum bullion at spot deals and constitutional silver priced below spot deals, all while supplies last.

[00:09:03]That's going to be all for this week's bullion market update. As always to you out there, take good care of yourselves and those you love.

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[00:09:20]Analysis and discussion provided by SD Bullion Inc. at sdbullion.com and related media platforms is for education and entertainment purposes only. It's not recommended for trading purposes, nor is any of this content financial advice. Employees and contributing authors to SD Bullion are not investment advisors. Information obtained here should not be taken as professional investment counseling. The commentary on sdbullion.com reflects the opinions of respective authors and not that of SD Bullion Inc. Your own due diligence is recommended before buying or selling any investment securities and or precious metals.