Why real yields still matter for gold
For about fifteen years the ten-year TIPS yield was the single best explanatory variable for the gold price. When real yields fell, gold rose, because the opportunity cost of holding a metal that pays nothing went down.
That relationship weakened sharply once central banks started buying at record pace. Real yields went up and gold went up anyway. It still matters at the margin, especially for Western ETF flows, but it is no longer the whole story.
In practice I now treat real yields as a short-term driver and official demand as the long-term trend.