Key Takeaways
- Cathie Wood said on Nov. 9 that bitcoin’s correlation with gold has been just 0.1 since 2019.
- Gold rose 1.7% to $4,141 on Nov. 9 while bitcoin slipped below $75,000, testing Ark’s thesis.
- Traders now watch Tuesday’s CPI report, with markets pricing a likely Federal Reserve hike in December.
“Gold Is Going Down”
Wood made the call in remarks this week, with her main argument being statistical. She stated:
Gold is going down. Since 2019, there’s been no correlation between BTC and gold. The correlation has been 0.1.
A correlation of 1 means the two assets move in lockstep while a reading near zero means they largely ignore each other.
Lastly, Wood believes that bitcoin will keep gaining on gold because it “marches to its own beat.”
A Repeat of Her September Call
This is not a new position for the Ark Invest lead, as in September, she told viewers of Ark’s “In The Know” series that bitcoin had “miles to go” against gold and described it as “both a risk-off and a risk-on asset.” At the time, bitcoin traded near $78,008 and spot gold sat near $4,377 an ounce. Over the trailing year, gold had gained 20% while bitcoin had lost 28%.
Since then, the ratio has barely budged. With bitcoin at about $74,700 and gold at about $4,141, one bitcoin now buys about 18.1 ounces of gold, compared with roughly 17.8 ounces in mid-September.
Gold’s Rough Year
Wood is betting against a metal that has already taken heavy damage. Gold hit a record of $5,110.50 on Jan. 26 and then fell to about $3,986 on Oct. 23, a drop of roughly 22%, Bitcoin.com News reported.
Both assets have disappointed and as of late last month, bitcoin was down 7.3% and gold 7.5% for the year, making them 2026’s worst-performing major assets, according to Creative Planning’s Charlie Bilello. HSBC has also warned that gold is losing its status as a short-term volatility hedge, because leveraged traders are forced to sell it when stocks fall. The bank still remains bullish over the long term, pointing to central bank buying and ETF inflows.
Gold Bugs Are Not Buying It
The short-term data is working against Wood, with Gold rising about 1.7% yesterday to settle at $4,141.14 an ounce, all while oil prices slid and the dollar weakened. Bitcoin, meanwhile, briefly dropped to $73,700 as more than $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated.
Longtime gold advocate Peter Schiff pointed to that split and said that since the midterms, U.S. stocks were basically flat. To elaborate, bitcoin is down more than 4%, while gold is up more than 5%, silver is up almost 7%, and gold mining stocks are up more than 18%. “This is a sign of things to come,” Schiff wrote.
The next catalyst is Tuesday’s U.S. consumer price index (CPI) report, as higher interest rates can weigh on both gold and bitcoin, since neither pays a yield, and traders are already pricing a likely December hike from the Federal Reserve. A hot inflation print would test Wood’s call that gold breaks first.
Bitcoin heads into the report on shaky footing after it closed below its 50-week moving average, ending a seven-week streak of closes above it.
