Markets
Gold Is 11% Off Its August Peak, and $4,200 Has Flipped From Floor to Ceiling
Tokenized gold broke below $4,200 on September 28 and hasn't closed above it since. On October 2 it touched $4,230 and finished back at $4,152.
Gold has been one of 2026's more dramatic markets, and its latest chapter is a slow retreat. Measured by PAX Gold (PAXG), a token backed by physical gold that trades around the clock on Binance, the metal closed at $4,673.67 on August 24, its highest close of the summer. On October 2 it closed at $4,152.58, a decline of about 11%.
The decisive break came on Monday, September 28. Selling started at 22:00 UTC on Sunday — around the time spot gold trading reopens for the week — and continued through the Asian and European sessions. PAXG crossed below $4,200 around 05:00 UTC and reached $4,122 in the 14:00 UTC hour, its lowest price since early August. It closed the day at $4,139, down 2.8%, on about $28 million of volume, its busiest session since September 16.
Since then, $4,200 has behaved like a lid. PAXG closed below it on September 29, September 30 and October 1, and on October 2 it pushed briefly to $4,230 before selling off to finish at $4,152.58, down 0.9%. That is a textbook case of former support acting as resistance: a level where buyers stepped in during September is now where sellers appear.
The longer view adds some perspective. Gold ended 2025 at about $4,337 on this measure, so after everything that happened in between, the metal is now slightly lower for the year. In the short term the picture is a range between roughly $4,120 and $4,230, with the upper edge doing the rejecting. A daily close back above $4,230 would be the first sign that the selling is exhausted; a close below $4,120 would put the early-August lows near $4,066 back in play.