Gold–Risk Asset Decoupling OPEN
Tracking a regime-switching claim, registered 2026-08-22: that the co-movement of gold and equities rests on a shared reaction function to rate expectations and real yields, and that once energy/commodity-shock inflation becomes entrenched (a fixed three-leg composite), that function breaks down and the gold–equity correlation collapses — direction of gold afterward unspecified. The entrenchment precondition (a) and the conditional correlation breakdown (b) are scored independently and never collapsed into one verdict; decorrelation without entrenchment falsifies rather than confirms.
This series predates the site’s public logging (which began 2026-10-14); its pre-registration is published verbatim, with original as-of dates, per the retrospective-start rules.
current ledger
carried forward from Gold–Risk Asset Decoupling — Episode 1: The September Stress Test (as of 2026-10-01).
| id | condition | threshold | observable by | status | as of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Entrenched inflation + sustained positive gold–equity correlation | Entrenchment composite ACTIVE (legs i–iii all holding) AND the 60-day rolling GLD/SPY daily-return correlation stays above +0.40 for 3+ consecutive months (~63 sessions) under those conditions | Core PCE YoY from FRED PCEPILFE (monthly), Brent from FRED DCOILBRENTEU (daily), 60-day GLD/SPY correlation series (daily) | not-met | 2026-10-01 |
| F2 | Decorrelation without entrenchment | 60-day correlation drops below +0.10 (or negative) for 3+ months while core PCE returns below 2.5% YoY and Brent falls below $65/bbl sustained — decoupling for reasons other than entrenchment | same instruments as F1, daily and monthly | not-met | 2026-10-01 |
| F3 | Structural demand dominates the reaction function | central-bank gold purchases exceed 1,200 tonnes/yr AND gold becomes statistically insensitive to real yields (rolling weekly gold→10Y TIPS yield (DFII10) beta within ±0.05 for 6+ months) while gold–equity correlation is also near zero | WGC Gold Demand Trends (quarterly); 26-week rolling OLS of weekly GLD returns on weekly DFII10 changes (weekly) | not-met | 2026-10-01 |
| F4 | Gold follows equities down in full stagflation | a sustained stagflationary episode (core PCE > 3%, unemployment rising, equity drawdown > 15% from high) in which gold also declines > 10% from its own peak, maintaining correlation > +0.30 with equities throughout | core PCE (monthly), unemployment (BLS, monthly), SPY high-water drawdown and 60-day GLD/SPY correlation (daily) | not-met | 2026-10-01 |
| F5 | Official-demand channel collapses (component-level: adjudicates the structural-bid leg, not the thesis directly) | trailing-4-quarter official net purchases fall below 700t AND the IMF COFER dollar share stops declining (flat-to-rising for 2 consecutive quarters) | WGC quarterly tonnage; IMF COFER data briefs (quarterly) | partial | 2026-10-01 |
episodes
- 2026-08-22 initiation Gold–Risk Asset Decoupling — Pre-registration
- 2026-10-01 episode·1 Gold–Risk Asset Decoupling — Episode 1: The September Stress Testweakened