China has emerged as a critical force propelling gold prices to record highs in 2025, according to one of the most influential analysts on Wall Street. Torsten Slok, Apollo Global Management’s chief economist who is renowned for his pithy, incisive daily email, The Daily Spark, highlighted on Tuesday that China’s impact goes beyond central bank buying; it also involves arbitrage trading, robust household demand, and safe-haven investment behavior, and he produces convincing data backing these claims. Against a backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty, Slok notes that at this rate, global central banks will soon hold more gold than U.S. dollars, the world’s reserve currency.
“China is playing a key role in the ongoing rise in gold prices because of central bank buying, arbitrage trading, and increased speculative and safe-haven demand among Chinese households,” Slok wrote in his Tuesday Daily Spark, including four charts that prove his point. He included a fifth showing that “higher business uncertainty in the U.S. is also pushing gold prices up.”
