Gold Price Today: PBOC's 20-Month Buying Streak Meets FOMC Minutes

China’s central bank bought gold again in June. That makes 20 months in a row — the longest run of monthly additions since at least 2015 — according to data released Tuesday, July 7, 2026. The timing is what stands out: the disclosure lands with spot gold (XAU/USD) parked in the $4,150-$4,170/oz zone, drifting a touch softer intraday, as traders wait on Wednesday’s Federal Reserve minutes and keep one eye on the Strait of Hormuz shipping crisis.

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What happened

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added 480,000 troy ounces (about 14.9 tonnes) of gold to its reserves in June, per data reported by the South China Morning Post and Investing.com. That pushes total official holdings to 75.44 million troy ounces (roughly 2,346 tonnes), up from 74.96 million ounces in May — the 20th straight monthly increase. One wrinkle: in dollar terms the reserve’s value actually slipped to $303.72 billion from $340.75 billion the prior month. That is June’s softer gold price at work, not a cut in tonnage. Even after two years of steady buying, gold still accounts for under 10% of China’s $3.4163 trillion foreign-exchange reserve portfolio. Bloomberg headlined the move “China’s PBOC Buys Most Gold Since 2023 as Bullion Swings,” reading it as Beijing leaning on bullion as a strategic hedge against market volatility (paywalled; the framing is corroborated by SCMP and Investing.com’s underlying PBOC figures).

The tape tells a quieter story. Live quotes cited by Trading Economics had spot gold near $4,159/oz Tuesday, down about $5.80 (-0.14%) on the day, while CNBC’s 9:00am ET snapshot put gold at $4,168.43/oz against $4,143.46 at the same time Monday. Trading Economics also flagged gold clawing back earlier losses to trade roughly flat near $4,170/oz, with investors weighing Middle East tensions against the looming Fed minutes. Put those levels in context: they sit roughly 25-26% below gold’s January 28, 2026 record high near $5,589-$5,608/oz, the peak struck as US-Iran tensions escalated.

Why it matters

Central-bank demand is the floor under this market. The PBOC’s 20-month streak keeps feeding a reserve-diversification, de-dollarization-linked bid that has powered gold’s multi-year bull run largely regardless of where the Fed sits on any given week.

But the Fed is still the swing factor. June’s nonfarm payrolls rose just 57,000 against roughly 110,000 expected — the weakest gain in four months, and the prior two months were revised lower — while unemployment held at 4.2%, per Investing.com/Kitco reporting. A print that soft has trimmed near-term tightening bets. Yet the Fed remains on hold at 3.50-3.75%, and with the dollar (DXY near 101) and 10-year Treasury yields (near 4.5%, per Kitco’s Monday AM report) both firm, gold’s rebound has struggled to find air.

Geopolitical risk is cooling, not gone. Kitco reported Monday that oil’s geopolitical premium is downshifting from acute shock to “managed risk” (Brent $71.72, WTI $68.40), with the Strait of Hormuz standoff running under a temporary memorandum of understanding that expires August 17, 2026. That is still a live tail-risk for both oil and gold.

And the money hasn’t followed the story. StoneX’s Rhona O’Connell called gold ETFs “still friendless” in Kitco’s Monday PM report, and TD Securities noted that bearish precious-metals positioning has been stubborn to shift. Translation: the central-bank buying data, on its own, has yet to pull broader institutional flows back into the trade.

What to watch next

• FOMC minutes, Wednesday July 8, 2:00pm ET — the near-term catalyst. A hawkish tone likely keeps gold capped below the $4,150-$4,200 resistance band flagged by Investing.com’s analysis; a more balanced or dovish read could reopen upside toward that zone and beyond.
• Strait of Hormuz headlines — any escalation or de-escalation ahead of the August 17 MOU deadline.
• The next PBOC gold data release, expected around August 7, plus broader World Gold Council flow data.
• ETF flows — the tell for whether the weak positioning StoneX and TD Securities describe finally starts to turn.

Spot prices move intraday; readers should check a live quote (e.g., Kitco or Trading Economics) at the time of reading rather than treating the ranges above as a fixed close. This article reflects analysis based on sourced third-party reporting as of July 7, 2026 and is not a forecast of future price movement. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

Sources: South China Morning Post, Investing.com, Bloomberg (headline attribution only), Kitco News AM/PM reports, Trading Economics, CNBC Select.