About The Gold Barometer

How to read the Barometer in 60 seconds

1. The score. A single number between 0 and 100. Higher means gold buying conditions today rank favorably against every trading day since 1971. Lower means the opposite. The score is a percentile-based composite of seven measured conditions, weighted per the published formula.
2. The zones. The 0-to-100 range is split into five zones with fixed thresholds: Historically very unfavorable (0 to 19), Unfavorable (20 to 39), Mixed (40 to 59), Favorable (60 to 79), Historically very favorable (80 to 100). The zones map to bands with published forward-return statistics from the 1971-onwards backtest.
3. The two hands. The brass hand is today's reading. The thin steel hand is where the reading stood seven days ago. The gap between them is the short-term trend. There is no third hand and no forecast.
4. Where the evidence lives. Every pillar links to its own page with what it measures, how it is scored, the evidence for using it, its caveat, and its primary-source citations. The full backtest, band statistics, and the failures record are on the history page. The methodology page holds the formula, the version history, and the register of candidate signals not included.

Short glossary

Percentile

The rank of today's value within its own historical distribution, expressed 0 to 100. A pillar sub-score of 80 means today looks more favorable than 80% of trading days on that specific pillar since the pillar's start date. Percentiles are used throughout because they make comparison across eras honest.

Drawdown

The peak-to-trough percentage decline over a given window. The backtest publishes the median maximum drawdown observed within one year and within five years for each zone. Drawdown is what buying conditions cannot see: even a favorable zone can precede a painful path.

Spot

The current market price of gold, in US dollars per troy ounce, as quoted by a licensed price feed. The site displays a generic spot from Metals.dev. LBMA and IBA branded rates are never displayed. Spot is a price, not a signal; it enters the score only through the entry-price pillar, which compares spot to a long-run inflation-adjusted average.

Premium

The amount a dealer's retail price exceeds spot, in percent. Rising premiums on physical coins and bars are a leading indicator of retail scarcity and dealer inventory stress. The Gold Barometer publishes only the derived multi-dealer aggregate index, never per-dealer prices.

Why it exists

The origin question is the one investors keep asking: "Is now the right time to buy gold?" The answer is not an opinion. It is a comparison against history. The Gold Barometer builds that comparison from seven measured conditions, publishes the formula, publishes the archive, and publishes where the framework has been wrong. It is the answer, given as an instrument reading rather than an opinion piece.

How it is different from what is already out there

The gold information landscape today is dominated by three formats. Sentiment gauges (fear-and-greed style) that publish a daily number without disclosing weights or backtesting the number against history. Advice articles from banks, dealers, and media outlets that answer the question with narrative but not data. Price tickers, which show today's price but do not interpret it. Each has a use; none is a measurement.

The Gold Barometer is designed to be the fourth format: a measurement. Concretely, that means:

• A published formula with numbered pillars, published weights, and published per-pillar evidence grades with primary-source citations.
• A backtest to 1971 with published forward returns per zone, including the failures.
• A dated archive of every reading, committed daily to a public GitHub repository as a permanent record.
• An openly-collected proprietary series (the retail premium index) that no dealer would publish, because dealers cannot be neutral about their own margins.

This is a category, not a claim. The site does not describe itself with words like transparent, honest, or unbiased. Instead it lets the artifacts stand: the formula, the archive, the backtest, and this page.

Who operates it

Marc Pavageau, independent publisher based in Rennes, France. No dealer affiliation on this site. Contact: hello@thegoldbarometer.com.

Monetization disclosure

This site itself is neutral: no on-site affiliate links, no display advertising, no dealer sponsorship. The optional email alert list is free and delivers zone-change notifications only. If any future email sequence contains affiliate links to third-party services, those messages will carry an FTC disclosure at the top of the message per Federal Trade Commission guidelines on endorsements.

Independence and neutrality

Dealer prices used in the retail premium pillar come from openly-served public pages, once per day. Per-dealer prices are never republished; only a base-100 aggregate index. If any dealer requests removal, the site removes them from the basket, as a matter of policy. Dealer names appear in methodology and provenance text only, as plain text, without logos, and under nominative fair use.

Common questions

Contact

Email hello@thegoldbarometer.com. Press and data requests welcome. If you have found a numerical error, please email; the correction will appear on the corrections page with the date received.