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Since the fighting began in late February, gold has experienced a volatile downtrend, falling from roughly $5,274/oz to roughly $4,102/oz as of July 30 (1).
It’s likely that many yellow metal investors never saw the decline coming, especially since gold prices reached an all-time high of $5,500 in January 2026.
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Since then, it’s been all downhill as gold’s price fell by more than 20% due to a bruising combination of volatile geopolitical tension and a robust U.S. dollar. Gold bugs primarily have two options — sit the slide out until the Iran affair disappears or buy gold cheap on the dip.
Here’s a closer look at why gold is down right now, but should rise again if you don’t mind waiting.
Big buyers and sellers move commodities markets
It’s not only the Iran issue that’s keeping gold down. Just like the stock market, buy and sell cycles can have a major impact on sector prices, and that’s what investors have seen over the past several months.
“The selling reports got blown out of proportion,” David Han, founder of AIStockWire.com, told Moneywise. “Turkey sold 60 tons in March that made headlines, and for a quarter the buying looked stalled. But the newer tracking shows central banks back to buying around 50 tons a month.”
Gold-buying countries have spent ten years reducing how much they depend on the dollar, but one fiscal quarter doesn’t undo a ten-year plan.
“For the long run, that’s the buyer I care about, because when the price drops they don’t sell, they usually buy more,” Han noted.
Opportunity awaits patient investors
It’s a confusing time for gold investors, as high economic and geopolitical strife usually give gold a boost, but not this year.
“People are acting like gold failed at its job, and I get the confusion, as war starts, gold drops, and that seems backward,” Han said. “But gold ran to $5,595 in January before the war even started, so the scared money had already bought in.”
As the Iran conflict heated up, oil prices rose, which triggered higher inflation, and inflation forced the Fed to keep interest rates high. “That’s the part most people miss,” Han said. “Gold doesn’t pay you anything to own it, and right now T-bills pay over 4%, so a lot of cash parks there instead.”
Yet Han sees a big buying opportunity with gold even as its value erodes, provided investors show patience.
Case in point: Back in 2011, it peaked around $1,900/oz, then bled for four years, down more than 40 percent. “Most people quit on it,” Han noted. “Then it came all the way back and doubled. In 20 years of trading,”
As long as investors don’t mind the long boring stretches that come with gold ownership, then a huge run can follow closely behind. “Consequently, buying today at 22% under the January high is fine as long as you’re not expecting a payoff next month,” Han added.
Commodity experts support that sentiment, noting that gold should be viewed as a long-term investment and measured over 10 or 20 years, not by how it reacts to a single geopolitical crisis. “That’s why I continue to like holding physical gold in a self-directed IRA or solo 401(k), where the focus is on building wealth over decades, not days,” Adam Bergman, founder of Miami-based IRA Financial, told Moneywise.
Keep a low, but fixed, gold portion of your investment portfolio
Historically, financial advisors recommend Main Street investors keep 5% to 10% of a portfolio in gold as a portfolio hedge. That’s a move that Bergman supports, with a caveat.
“Depending on someone’s overall portfolio and risk tolerance, I could even see a modestly higher allocation today,” he noted. “Gold has more than doubled over the last five years and has generated roughly 12% annualized returns over the last decade, despite periods of volatility.”
One thing Bergman said he’s learned after working with retirement investors for more than 20 years is that the most successful ones think in decades, not quarters. “They don’t chase headlines or try to time every market move,” he noted. “Retirement accounts, especially, are built for long-term investing, and that’s exactly how I think investors should approach gold.”
Additionally, gold investors need to avoid letting short-term market moves drive long-term investment decisions.
“Too many investors spend their time trying to call the exact bottom, and that’s a losing game,” Bergman said.
A better move is to buy gold gradually and let time do the work, and keep an eye on interest rates, inflation, Treasury yields and the U.S. dollar. This is similar to dollar cost averaging, or buying into certain parts of the stock market regularly regardless of performance.
“Gold has always worked best as a long-term diversifier, not as a trade based on the latest headline,” Bergman added.
Other experts agree
Bergman isn’t exactly alone in making the case for gold. Some of Wall Street’s most influential investors have argued that the precious metal deserves a permanent place in a diversified portfolio.
Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio has been making that case for years.
“A well-diversified portfolio would have somewhere between 10% and 15% in the portfolio of gold,” Dalio claimed while speaking at a panel during Abu Dhabi Finance Week last year (3).
Even JPMorgan & Chase CEO Jamie Dimon — who has spent years dismissing gold as an investment — has come around, at least a little.
For years, the JPMorgan CEO insisted he wasn’t a “gold buyer,” arguing that the metal “costs 4% to own” and doesn’t generate income (4). But as geopolitical tensions, mounting debt and economic uncertainty have intensified, his stance has softened.
Speaking at the Forbes Most Powerful Women conference last October, Dimon acknowledged, “This is one of the few times in my life, it’s semi-rational to have some in your portfolio.”
Open a gold IRA
Opening a gold IRA with the help of Goldco allows you to invest in gold and other precious metals in physical forms while also providing the significant tax advantages of an IRA.
If you’re already carving out a small, permanent spot for gold in your portfolio, it may also be worth looking beyond traditional stocks and bonds. Diversifying across multiple asset classes — not just precious metals — can help reduce the impact of market volatility over time.
Real estate has historically offered that kind of balance. Housing prices don’t always rise and fall alongside the stock market, which means property investments can hedge your returns when equities tumble. At the same time, rental income can provide an additional source of cash flow regardless of what’s happening on Wall Street, or who sits in the White House.
The catch is that buying investment property often requires substantial capital, not to mention the ongoing work of managing tenants, repairs and unexpected maintenance.
But with crowdfunding platforms like Arrived, you can invest in real estate without the burden of mortgages or managing tenants.
Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived lets you purchase shares of vacation and rental properties across the country. Arrived distributes any rental income generated by properties to investors monthly, allowing you to potentially set up a passive income stream without the extra work that comes with being a landlord of your own rental property.
For accredited investors looking to diversify further, Bonaventure offers access to institutional-grade multifamily real estate investments in high-growth markets with a minimum investment of $25,000.
Bonaventure focuses on income-producing apartment communities, offering potential tax advantages through structures like 1031 exchanges and UPREITs, allowing you to build passive income and wealth while the company manages the properties.
Plus, Bonaventure has a fully-loaded resource center that teaches you everything you need to evaluate multifamily investments. Sign up today, explore your options and construct your real estate portfolio.
Keep investing in the stock market
Adding gold to your portfolio doesn’t mean abandoning stocks altogether.
Equities have been surprisingly resilient so far this year, despite concerns over inflation, tariffs, elevated valuations and global tension. The S&P 500 index is up over 8% year-to-date as of July 27 (5).
Legendary investor Warren Buffett has emphasized this for decades.
“The temptation when you see bad headlines in newspapers is to say, well, maybe I should skip a year or something. Just keep buying,” Buffett said, “American business is going to do fine over time, so you know the investment universe is going to do very well (6).”
Keeping a relatively fixed allocation to gold while continuing to invest consistently in equities allows you to benefit from long-term market growth without becoming overly dependent on any single asset class.
The best part? You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars to invest in the stock market.
Platforms like Acorns allow you to turn your spare change from everyday purchases into an investment opportunity.
All you have to do is link your cards, and Acorns will round up each purchase to the nearest dollar, investing the difference — your spare change — into a diversified portfolio of ETFs managed by experts at leading investment firms like Vanguard and BlackRock.
So, when you buy a morning coffee for $3.25, Acorns will round it up to the dollar, transforming it into a 75-cent investment in your future.
With Acorns, you can invest in an index ETF with as little as $5 — and, if you sign up today and set up a recurring investment, Acorns will add a $20 bonus to help you begin your investment journey.
— With files from Brian O’Connell
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