China pulls in 173 tonnes of gold in a single June

§1A 173-tonne month.

China bought the dip in size. The country imported roughly 173 tonnes of gold in June, its heaviest monthly inflow since March 2024, carrying first-half imports toward 820 tonnes. The number matters because of its timing: it landed as gold pulled back from above $4,100 toward $4,000, the exact move that chills Western investors and warms Chinese buyers.

The pattern is now familiar but no less telling. When the price sags, the East restocks. Chow Tai Fook reported weight-based gold jewelry up 63.7% in Hong Kong and Macau and 38% on the mainland last quarter as softer prices revived demand, and the import figure is the wholesale echo of that retail pull, metal moving toward the counters that sell it by the gram rather than the story.

§2A split market.

It is a split market. Western fund flows have wavered into the Federal Reserve's July 28–29 meeting, wary that a hawkish hold lifts yields and dulls a metal that pays no interest. Chinese demand runs on the opposite logic: a lower dollar price is a buying signal, not a warning, and central-bank and household appetite has kept building through the very weakness that unsettles the paper market.

§3The floor it builds.

The consequence shows up as a floor. Heavy physical offtake in the East is a large part of why gold has held the low $4,000s rather than retracing further, cushioning the pullbacks that the charts keep threatening. The question into Wednesday is whether Fed messaging can pull Western money back to the same side of the trade the East has never left.