Gold should fall as real yields rise: holding it costs more when safe real returns improve. When gold climbs WITH real yields, the market is pricing debasement or sovereign risk, not opportunity cost.
BEHAVING z = 0.90 ROBUST as of 2026-07-31
toward the strained side: above ~82% of its history
The dysfunction statistic, full history
Above the dashed zero line is the economically wrong direction: the
relationship failing to do its stabilizing job.
The two series it watches
GOLD_LBMA
1968
high 5,278 · low 35.01 · now 4,046 · 8 recessions shaded 2026
DFII10
2003
high 3.06 · low -1.17 · now 2.47 · 2 recessions shaded 2026
How it is scored
Correlation today (r)
0.0421
z vs. its own history
0.9 on the Fisher-transformed (arctanh) correlation (effective N ≈ 103.4 independent windows, from 5,725 overlapping readings)
Rule, pre-committed
z < 1 BEHAVING · 1 ≤ z < 2 STRAINED · z ≥ 2 with the wrong economic sign, held 5 consecutive readings, DECOUPLED.
Confidence
ROBUST: Plain rolling correlation of daily moves, on arctanh-transformed values; gold is the official LBMA price, the real yield is the 10y TIPS (DFII10, 2003+). Positive co-movement is the debasement/sovereign-risk side, the tie to the Crisis-Ratio thesis.