No one is rushing for gold discounts anymore: Sentiment reversed in three months, and retail investors lost again due to the same statement.

The gold in the jewelry store is on sale again.

But this time, there are few people in front of the counter.

This is completely different from a few months ago. At that time, the gold price soared all the way. There were queues in front of the jewelry stores. Some people were afraid that the price would skyrocket, so they gritted their teeth and bought it first. Now that the gold price has dropped and the store has posted discounts, it has become deserted instead. The salesperson said that there are many people asking, but few people paying.

Don't rush to laugh. Because this scene is almost re - enacted with a different commodity every few years. It's gold today, white wine a few years ago, and various popular funds even earlier. The script is exactly the same, only the protagonist has a different face.

Gold doesn't deceive people. What deceives people is the phrase "It's too late if you don't buy now."

First, see what happened in the past three months

Let's rewind more than a year. In 2025, the international gold price increased by more than 60%, setting more than 50 new historical highs in a year (Source: Sina Finance, May 8, 2026). By January 2026, the international spot gold price once approached $5,600 per ounce, which was near the historical high point.

Then what? The situation changed. As of May 8, 2026, the spot gold price dropped back to around $4,705, retracing nearly 16% from the high point at the end of January (Source: NetEase Finance citing market data, May 10, 2026). In late May, the gold price once fell below the $4,500 integer mark and declined for two consecutive weeks. Many institutions pressed the "pause button" on their bullish views (Source: Securities Times Network, May 2026).

What's more noteworthy is the volatility itself. Data shows that since 2026, after the gold price broke through $5,500, it has experienced successive sharp fluctuations, and the volatility has climbed to the top 5% range of the data series since 1971 (Source: Global Times Consumer, April 2026). To put it simply, this is not a gentle rise or fall, but a roller - coaster ride.

Key figures: The gold price rose by more than 60% and set more than 50 new highs in 2025 | Approached $5,600 in January 2026 | Dropped back to $4,705 in May, retracing nearly 16% | Fell below the $4,500 mark in late May and declined for two consecutive weeks

The most affected is not the gold bars, but the "fixed - price" gold

There is an easily overlooked detail here, which is exactly the most heart - wrenching one.

In this round of decline, the ones that fell the most were not the investment gold bars sold by the gram, but the "fixed - price" gold products. The maximum decline reached 17%, exceeding that of the gold bars priced by the gram (Source: Sina Finance citing industry insiders, May 8, 2026).

Why? Because in essence, fixed - price gold is closer to a consumer product than an investment product. Its pricing is "gold price + processing fee + brand premium + design premium", and the premiums for craftsmanship, design, and brand account for a relatively large proportion. When you buy it, you pay more for the "good - looking" part. But once it is recycled, most of it is calculated only based on the bare gold price, and those premiums disappear instantly.

To put it in plain language: Many people think they are buying "value - preserving gold", but actually they are buying "the premium on their bodies". When the price is rising, this premium is covered by the rising gold price. When the price falls, they find that they are in the most vulnerable position.

You think you're buying gold, but when you check out, you find you're buying a premium that can't be recovered.

The lesson that retail investors never learn

Now let's go back to the initial scene: Why do people rush to buy when the price is rising, but not when the price is falling?

From a pure accounting perspective, this is completely the opposite. For the same gram of gold, you rush to buy it at $5,600, but you think it's too expensive to buy at $4,700. Is it really less worth it just because it's $900 cheaper?

But people don't make decisions based on accounts; they are driven by emotions. When the price is rising, what drives you is the fear of missing out. Everyone else is making money, and I'm the only one who hasn't got on the bandwagon. This kind of anxiety is more uncomfortable than losing money. When the price is falling, what drives you is the fear of being trapped. If you buy it today and lose money tomorrow, who would dare to take the next hit? So there are crowds at the high point and no one at the low point. This is the most basic form of "chasing the rise and selling the fall".

This emotional curve is not unique to gold. If you overlay it on white wine, on the popular funds of previous years, and on various "national wealth - management" trends even earlier, you will find that the curves almost coincide: First, the profit - making effect attracts the first batch of people. Then, the stories in the media and from people around you amplify the panic of "it's too late if you don't buy now". Finally, the last batch of people who buy at the high point get stuck at the peak. Once the market turns around, there will be a lot of self - reflection left.

The three - stage emotional curve of retail investors: ① The profit - making effect attracts the early adopters → ② The panic of "fear of missing out" leads to a crowd at the high point → ③ The market turns around, the high - point buyers get trapped, and no one dares to enter at the low point

So, can the gold price still be expected?

When we talk about emotions, it doesn't mean that gold itself has no value. This must be clearly distinguished; otherwise, we will jump from one extreme to the other.

The factors supporting the medium - and long - term logic of gold still exist. Data from the World Gold Council shows that in the first quarter of 2026, the net gold purchases of central banks around the world reached 244 tons, higher than the previous quarter and the five - year average (Source: First - quarter report of the World Gold Council, cited by Securities Times Network, May 2026). Central banks continue to buy gold and regard it as a strategic asset to hedge against "the fragmentation of the international order" and "the risks of sovereign credit currencies". This underlying support has not changed.

In other words, as a small "ballast stone" in long - term asset allocation, the logic of gold still holds. The real problem has never been gold itself, but the act of "making investment decisions with the impulse of buying consumer products": chasing the rise when you see the price going up, following others when you see them rushing to buy, and treating the jewelry counter as a wealth - management window.

Don't rush to buy at the bottom, and don't rush to cut your losses

After reading this, there may be two types of people who can't sit still. One type wants to ask: After such a big drop, is it a good time to buy at the bottom? The other type is regretting: Should I cut my losses quickly for the gold I bought at the high point?

Let's talk about buying at the bottom first. Even top investment banks don't have a unanimous consensus on how the gold price will move in the short term. International large - scale investment banks generally believe that in the short term, the repeated expectations of interest rates will make the gold market volatile, and it's difficult for the price to have a breakthrough. Only after the market digests various macro - data and the expectation of interest rate cuts is actually realized will the gold price have an upward opportunity (Source: Tencent News citing institutional views, May 27, 2026). In other words, no one can tell you that $4,500 is the bottom. It may be the bottom, or it may just be halfway down the mountain. Expecting to buy exactly at the lowest point is actually another form of "gambling".

Now let's talk about cutting losses. If your original intention of buying gold was for long - term asset allocation and risk hedging, then the short - term rise and fall should not shake this intention. But if you bought it purely because "you saw it rising all the time and were afraid of missing out", then your current discomfort just shows that you had the wrong reason for buying, not the wrong product. It's more important to figure out why you bought it in the first place than to worry about whether to sell it now.

What determines whether you should panic is not how much the gold price has dropped, but why you bought it in the first place.

A small rule that has been repeatedly verified

There is an old saying in the market: "The better the gold business is, the more careful you should be." This sounds strange, but it actually makes sense.

Some time ago, many people saw news in the media about gold merchants going bankrupt and running away. They all wondered: The gold price has been rising all the way, and the gold business is so booming. Why did the merchants go bankrupt instead (Source: NetEase Finance, May 10, 2026)? The answer lies in the word "booming". When the gold price soars, the most likely thing to happen is not stable operation, but speculative behavior such as leveraging to hoard goods and betting on the price to continue rising. Once the market reverses, the more goods you hoard and the higher the leverage, the faster you will go bankrupt. The same goes for merchants and retail investors.

This is why, in every round of assets that are popular among the public, the ones who are most hurt in the end are often not the calm minority, but the majority who rush in at the most exciting time and believe that "this time is different".

Conclusion

The "discount" sign is still hanging in the jewelry store, but few people are willing to stop.

This is actually a good thing. The deserted counter is exactly what the market looks like when it regains rationality. What's really a pity is the group of people who queued up at the high point a few months ago and paid more for the premium. What they bought was not gold, but the three words "fear of missing out".

Gold is still the same gold as it has been for thousands of years. What changes is that in each round, there are always people who believe again that "this time is different". The next thing that makes your heart skip a beat and makes you think "it's too late if you don't get on the bandwagon" may not be gold, but something else. But the phrase is still the same.

The rise and fall of the gold price is the market trend, and chasing the rise and selling the fall is human nature. The former changes, while the latter comes back with a different commodity every few years.