Gold Trust (GLD): Trend Funds Left and the Central Banks Stayed

By Juri von Randow · 13 October 2026 · Tuesday Target 42/52 2026

Why empty trend books, steady central bank buying and cheap options turn the gold slide into a case for a defined-risk call spread on GLD.

The Trend Crowd Already Left

Gold has had an ugly autumn. The big gold fund sits well under its January high and beneath every moving average on the chart, while the dollar trades at its strongest since the spring of last year. What interests me is who did the selling. Goldman's trend model puts the systematic funds at the very bottom of their range for the past year in gold, and its futures desk reports managed money back at an average position. The positioning reset is complete. The momentum crowd has chased the trend out the door, and the bench of sellers still waiting their turn looks very thin.

The slow money kept buying. China's central bank added gold again in September, extending a monthly streak that shows no sign of stopping, and central banks as a group are purchasing at a pace that makes this another heavy year. UBS sees that demand as a floor under the price. Lyn Alden wanted gold to hold a round number and so far it has. On the GLD chart the summer low is the line the official buyers defended. This is the pattern I like most: the fast hands have finished selling and the slow hands are still writing cheques.

Thin Premium on a Beaten Chart

The autumn also made GLD options cheap. Implied volatility sits lower than it did for most of the past year, and that flips the usual Tuesday Target logic. Most weeks the letter sells premium through condors because premium is rich. Here it is thin, so the letter owns it: a call debit spread, a long call struck above the current price and a short call higher up to lower the cost. The debit paid is the entire risk. The spread earns its maximum with GLD at or above the upper strike at expiry and expires worthless beneath the lower strike.

A directional spread wins less often than a condor, so the position runs at a smaller slice of the account than usual, with the loss stop at two thirds of the price paid. The exit rules are mechanical. A close above the upper strike takes the profit, a loss that reaches the stop ends the trade, and anything in between is held to expiry because the premium is the whole bet. The practical lesson for anyone trading options is in the mix: low implied volatility on an asset with a defended floor and a dated catalyst is where convexity comes cheap.

A Weaker Dollar With a Date

The catalyst is the election. Prediction markets lean toward a Democratic sweep on November 3, and Michael Hartnett at Bank of America expects the dollar and bond yields to slide into year-end if it arrives. A softer dollar is what gold has been waiting for all autumn, and the spread stays open past the vote. The things that break the story are the mirror image: a Republican surprise, a hot September inflation print landing in mid-October, or a Fed that hikes at its late-October meeting when the market gives that a small chance. Each of those lifts the dollar and pushes the trade toward its stop early. The other line is the summer low on GLD; a close beneath it means the central bank floor has given way, and the thesis goes with it.

Silver Ran the Rehearsal

There is a template for what happens when trend funds empty out. Speculative length in silver futures has been cut back hard, and trend followers hold their shortest silver position in a year. The previous reset of that shape came in August, and silver rallied sharply from late July into early September. Gold's positioning looks the same. A repeat is possible, and the asymmetry is the point. When the sellers are exhausted and the buyers with the deepest pockets are still at the counter, the path of least resistance tilts up, and cheap calls make that view affordable to hold while the dollar makes up its mind.

• GLD
• Debit Spread

Gold · Dollar