저자: KBS News · 외국인
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KBS 이슈 방송은 최근 금값 급락의 배경과 향후 전망을 다룬다. 국제 금값은 온스당 4,000달러 아래로 떨어졌고, 국내 금 매입가도 약 74만 원 수준으로 내려왔다고 전한다. 금값 하락의 배경으로는 유가 급등에 따른 인플레이션 우려와 금리 인상 기대가 꼽혔다. 이자가 없는 금은 금리가 오르면 매력이 떨어지는데, 실제로 10년물 국채금리가 떨어지지 않자 금값이 장 마감 때 하락 전환한 사례도 소개됐다. 고용 지표 둔화로 장중 급등했다가도 금리 흐름에 따라 되돌려진 점이 함께 언급됐다. 단기 투자자는 매도하는 반면 장기 투자자는 금 ETF로 자금을 유입하고 있다는 흐름도 전해졌다. 한국은행은 8월부터 금을 매입하기 시작했으며, 외환보유액의 달러 쏠림을 분산하려는 포트폴리오 다변화 목적이라고 설명됐다. 방송은 한국은행과 개인의 투자 목적이 다르므로 개인이 이를 따라 사는 것은 신중해야 한다고 짚는다. 이어지는 전문가 대담에서는 2025년 금값 급등기의 실물 품귀와 대기 기간, 9월 은행 금 판매 급증, 중국 인민은행의 장기간 금 매수 배경이 다뤄졌다. 실물 금 구매 시에는 음성 시장과 합법 시장의 가격 차이, 민간 금거래소의 신뢰성, 가짜 금 사기 위험을 확인할 필요가 있다고 조언한다.
다듬은 글
Now, let's look at the second keyword. Gold, the betrayal of a safe asset. So, are gold prices continuing to fall? Yes , that’s right. Gold prices are currently showing a downward trend. International gold prices broke below $ 4,000 per ounce. So they dipped below that level. They have risen slightly above $ 4,000 again, but they did go lower during the session.
So you could say this is the lowest level since July , and domestic gold prices have fallen as well. Looking at it now. Based on the Korea Gold Exchange. As of October 24th. The buying price is around 740,000 won. Yes, [a unit of measurement]. It used to be around that much, but now you can consider it to be around 740,000 won.
Yes. Regarding the reason for the continuous decline in gold prices, some say the move to sell gold to secure liquidity is a cause, and it seems the situation is changing the long-held belief that gold is a safe asset to buy more of when things are unstable. Yes, that’s correct. Participants in the current market seem to be selling more due to anxiety over interest rates rather than viewing gold as a safe asset, as you mentioned.
As you know, international oil prices are continuing to soar due to the war. Brent crude prices have even exceeded an all-time high of $ 115. Because of that, the market is thinking, "Wow, oil prices are rising like this.""Then inflation will surge," and since inflation is currently spiking in the U.S.
market, people are expecting another interest rate hike in December. Therefore, gold has no interest. If interest rates rise , gold prices inevitably lose their merit. Their attractiveness drops. Consequently, in the current market, many are looking at gold differently due to these interest rates, and as you mentioned, the KOSPI index and global indices are not doing well.
At such times, whenever skepticism about AI investment arises, the thought that "I should increase my cash" comes up. Because of this mindset, some people have started selling gold. Yes. I am curious about where gold prices will go, and I also noticed that there are differences in taxes depending on how you buy and sell gold.
Yes, that’s right. You should distinguish between short-term and long-term investments. Short-term investors are selling a lot right now, but long-term investors are actually buying gold. According to Bloomberg, gold ETFs have been seeing inflows for 14 consecutive days. So, while long-term investors are buying gold, a point to be aware of is this.
There is a price gap between buying and selling. In Korea, there is about a 15%price difference. Therefore, I suggest you consider the timing of buying and selling when thinking about investing in gold. Yes. Let's move on to the second keyword. The crash in gold prices. Well , just at the beginning of this year, gold prices rose so much that I remember us saying it was burdensome to buy even a 1g piece, let alone a one-don baby ring.
How much have gold prices fallen lately? They have fallen significantly. January was the peak. Compared to that peak, prices have now fallen by about 26%. If you look at the month of September alone, they dropped by about 6.6%. It seems that rising interest rates are affecting gold prices. That is my take on it.
But there was a very interesting movement on October 2nd. The U.S. announced its employment data. Non-farm payrolls for September were found to have increased by 29,000. However, the market had expected an increase of about 90,000, so the actual figure was much lower. This suggests that employment is slowing down.
If so, the Fed's reason to raise interest rates further disappears. Because of that, the expectation that there would be no additional rate hikes caused gold prices to surge during the session. But you have to watch until the end, because by the time the market closed, prices had actually fallen. The reason was that the 10-year Treasury yield didn't fall; it actually rose to 5.281% during the day.
As a result, the 10- year Treasury yield did not drop. So the market concluded that interest rates are unlikely to fall, and gold prices ended up closing lower. It is certain now that gold prices are heavily influenced by the 10-year Treasury yield, which was confirmed this time. Yes. A 26%drop from the high early this year is a massive decline.
Amid this situation, I heard news that the Bank of Korea plans to buy domestically produced gold in physical form, possibly around 1 ton. What is the strategy behind this? Yes, that’s right. Indeed. The Bank of Korea actually started buying gold back in August. Now, the plan known to the market is that they intend to purchase physical gold, specifically gold produced domestically.
As you know, the Bank of Korea is doing this to diversify its portfolio. Since our foreign exchange reserves are too heavily concentrated in dollar assets, the intention is to diversify into gold . As of the end of 2025, the proportion of gold in our foreign reserves is 3.2% . In terms of world central bank rankings, that puts us around 39th place.
The proportion of dollars is actually higher than the global central bank average. So, you can see this as starting gold purchases to diversify their portfolio, and starting in December, a system will be set up for the Bank of Korea to buy some of the gold produced domestically, in other words, gold that would have been exported.
They will start buying in earnest from then on, and here is what is important. In the past, when we bought gold, we bought it from overseas using dollars, but once this system is set up this time, some of the gold that is produced domestically and exported overseas will be purchased using won. Ah, then there is no need to use foreign currency.
So, I would say it's a very good strategy, and that's how they are now purchasing gold. Yes. It is clear that it has fallen significantly from the high point, and since the Bank of Korea says it is buying physical gold, one automatically thinks, wouldn't it be safe for individual investors to follow suit?
How should we view this safely? Yes. If I were to give you a gesture, I would say you should never follow them, and the reason is this. The investment purposes of the Bank of Korea and individuals are completely different. As I mentioned earlier, the Bank of Korea is holding gold for portfolio diversification and stability, not for investment purposes like individuals.
Reuters, too, is reporting that emerging countries are lowering their dollar weight and increasing their gold weight to diversify their portfolios. And they reported that this is supporting gold prices. So, it is very important for individual investors to watch the 10-year Treasury yield and whether the Fed raises interest rates further before making a decision.
Yes. I understand. Hello, everyone. This is Economy One-Shot. As gold prices have dropped by about 30%this year, the domestic gold market is also shrinking. Last month, the daily average transaction value plummeted to the lowest level of the year. However, while high interest rates are eroding the appeal of gold, the opposite phenomenon is also occurring, with investors who think this is the right time stepping up to buy gold bars.
When will the direction of gold, which is struggling to find its way, become clear? We will take a look at the gold outlook for the second half of the year , along with essential tips you shouldn't miss when investing in gold and silver. Now, please welcome Mr. Nam-il Keum, CEO of Gold Insight, an expert and author on gold and silver investment.
Hello. Yes. Representative, when I first heard your name, Yes. I thought, "This person was born for gold." I asked how your last name could be 'Keum'(gold). Yes. That is your real name, right? My original birth name is actually Kim Nam-il. Ah, it's Kim Nam-il. Like the soccer player Kim Nam-il. Yes.
Yes. Uh, we can actually read the character 'Kim' as 'Gold'(Geum) too, right? Ah, that's right. Since it's the same Chinese character. Yes. Yes. So, because the item I deal with is gold, I don't go by 'Kim Nam-il' on the YouTube channel I run; I go by ' Geum Nam-il' instead. Yes. Then today, I'll look forward to some aggressive commentary, just like soccer player Kim Nam-il.
Now, interest in gold seems to be really hot these days. Since the price of gold has dropped a bit from its peak , many people are actually more interested, so I hope we can have a session today to really dive deep into gold and dissect it. Looking at gold prices, I've always wondered—gold doesn't have an issuing entity, right?
So, how on earth is this price determined? I thought if we looked into that process, we might be able to read the current gold market. How is it decided? Yes. First of all, since there are no places in Korea where gold can be produced, gold is not produced domestically. So, we are in a situation where we have to import all our gold from overseas.
When gold is produced in overseas mines , it goes through refining and smelting to basically create 'four-nines' fine gold. Once that happens, the price is naturally determined according to supply, demand, and market logic. However, the gold market is basically based on futures, and domestically, the daily price is set every morning by multiplying the international gold price by the local exchange rate.
You can think of it as that kind of structure. You are running a gold exchange right now, right? Is the demand quite high at the moment? Demand for gold has rebounded recently, but we can't talk about now without mentioning last year. 2025 was truly historic, as the price of gold alone rose by 70%in that single year.
That went up way too much. Yes. Yes. Then how much did silver go up? It went up 210%. Gold rising 70%in a year is historically rare, so that year saw the largest volume of gold pouring in right at the peak of the rally. From October 2025 to January 2026, there was a massive amount of investment in gold and silver, so
Yes. Even back then, if you bought physical gold, you had to pay in full and wait three months. Oh. For physical silver, it could take up to six months to receive the product. So even if you had the money, you couldn't buy it. Yes. Instead, you fix the price at the time of purchase today, and receive the product later.
Yes. Since the production speed is slower than the order volume, the price is fixed, but the goods are received later . That's the concept. That was the case last year, Yes. and it was like that until this January. Since January 29th, gold prices have been falling sharply. As it started to fall, the war broke out on February 28th, causing it to fall again and again.
In the first half of the year, gold trading volume dropped to almost one-fourth of the previous year's. Yes. Yes. Then, as we moved into September, investment funds for gold and silver flowed back in significantly. It's interesting because there are some statistics that are slightly contradictory. One is that the gold market trading volume in Korea has hit its lowest level, but on the other hand , the gold bar sales of the five major domestic banks in September amounted to 29.1 billion won.
This is about 3.4 to 4 times the average monthly trading volume, which is a massive increase. So , are people seeing this as a low-price buying opportunity? People? That's right. The biggest reason for the increase in gold purchases in September is that they see this as the absolute bottom. Hmm. Hmm.
So, between August and September, gold prices momentarily broke through the $ 4,000 mark. At that time, it was considered the bottom, and from a macroeconomic perspective, the consensus among most experts was that $ 4,000 was the floor price. It hit the bottom. Yes. But it's quite ironic because the recent dollar strength has been very strong.
With the dollar index being very strong and 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields reaching 5.5%and 5.3%, conventional logic suggests gold prices should fall further when the dollar is this strong. Yes. It should have fallen further below $ 4,000, but the biggest reason it hasn't is that central banks are continuously buying gold at the bottom.
Hmm. They are supporting the bottom. Preventing it from falling further. Yes. From the central banks ' perspective, they are consistently buying at the $ 4,000 level. Because the floor is very solid and the buying momentum from central banks is strong, it's viewed that gold is stabilizing and will rise again; that is the biggest reason for the surge in gold purchases through banks in September.
But Representative, looking at the times when gold prices fell this year, gold always took a hit whenever there was a signal of an interest rate hike in the U.S. Is there no possibility of another correction? That is correct. There is certainly a possibility of a correction. And so, we need to take some time to wrap up the year 2026.
The biggest reason for the sharp decline from the peak was January 29th. The day Kevin Warsh was nominated as the Fed Chair, replacing Jerome Powell. That’s right. Gold prices dropped by nearly 9.3%. Yes. Well, since Kevin Warsh is known for his very hawkish nature, the market quickly grew concerned that the Fed's interest rate policy would become more restrictive, causing gold—which pays no interest or dividends—to plummet 9.3%in a single day.
Then, in about three days, it rose by about 4%. Just as the market was beginning to recover to some extent, the war between the U.S. and Iran broke out on February 28th. Yes. For about three days after the war started, gold prices rose. Due to the heightened geopolitical risks, there was a preference for safe-haven assets, so it rose for the first three days of the war, but after that, the price plummeted again.
The People's Bank of China has been buying gold for 23 consecutive months. It’s like, even if it drops, they buy . If it drops, they actually buy more. It feels like that kind of atmosphere. And it seems like not just the central bank, but also households and the private sector are buying a lot of gold ; why has China become such a big player in the gold market?
Looking at the steps China is taking right now, you can feel that they are very serious about gold. China and Japan used to be the biggest buyers of U.S. Treasuries, and China held a massive amount, but when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in 2022, they witnessed Russia's $ 300 billion in foreign reserves being frozen through an agreement between the U.S.
Treasury and the G7, and realized that the dollar could become a weapon at any time. They realized that the dollar capital held by China could become a target for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury whenever they want. From that point on, China started continuously converting its dollar capital into gold.
Despite buying gold for over 23 months now, China’s current foreign exchange reserves still stand at about $ 3.4 trillion. Even with such a massive amount, the proportion of gold is currently only about 8%. Oh, it’s only that much? Yes. Yes. However, China intends to bring the pricing power for gold to Asia in the future, and whereas we used to talk about "petrodollars," now the term " petroyuan" is emerging, as China pays in yuan when importing oil from countries like Russia or Iran.
The yuan cannot be used in trade with other countries, right? So, if you bring that received yuan to the Shanghai Gold Exchange, you can immediately withdraw it as physical gold bars. Hmm. So, in order not to fall behind in the current hegemony competition with the U.S., China has realized that securing gold, which is not subject to sanctions, is far more advantageous in the global power struggle than holding dollars, which are subject to sanctions .
This is not only at the national level, but they are also encouraging Chinese citizens to continuously buy a lot of gold. And Chinese institutions and banks as well, China amended its relevant laws last year to allow them to hold a portion of their funds in gold. How serious China is about gold, and from a macroscopic perspective, I think we need to take a deep look at what role China intends to use gold for .
So, because it actually has to be used, the Shanghai Gold Exchange conducts 100%physical collateral trading. Yes. Yes. There is a very interesting point. In the West, it is mostly in the form of paper gold, and cases of actual physical withdrawal are only around 5%. However, the physical price in the Asian region is formed at a higher level than the price in the West.
Then, logically speaking, if we withdraw gold from the West and sell it in the Asian market, there would be an arbitrage profit. Nevertheless, considering the high premium in the Asian market, the gold price, which used to be driven by the West, is now shifting to the Asian region. It would be good to keep that in mind.
Hmm. Now, let's move on and take a look at some essential tips that consumers should know regarding gold investment. First, many people recommend physical investment when investing in gold. But they say when investing in physical gold, you have to visit several gold shops just like going around to real estate agencies.
But isn't the price of gold fixed? Why is that? Basically, the posted gold price is fixed, but the domestic gold market is currently divided into a shadow market and a legitimate market. Shadow and legitimate markets? Yes. Yes, yes. Since the domestic gold market has traditionally been distributed mostly through the shadow market, it is often sold separately from what we commonly call VAT.
If you go to a typical wholesaler or a regular jewelry store, you can buy physical gold without paying VAT if you pay in cash, which ultimately represents an underground market. To legitimize this, the government introduced a way in 2014 for anyone to invest in gold through the KRX, allowing purchases in 1-gram increments via the Korea Exchange.
Yes. So, recently in August 2026, the domestic gold-related industry promotion act was passed by the National Assembly. It will likely take effect in the first half of 2027, whereas previously, the gold business was based on a registration system. Yes. Anyone could start the business and handle manufacturing, but it will shift to a licensing system in the future.
The core of this is that businesses must follow relevant training and laws; for example, if they are caught multiple times selling at underground prices, their license will be revoked. This is a key point, and if this happens, I believe the issue of why prices differ from place to place, as you mentioned earlier, could lead to a certain level of price uniformity.
If a fair price is maintained, it will gain a level of trust from consumers, so I think this is a good opportunity for the domestic gold market to embrace a new paradigm and be perceived by consumers as a more reliable industry. So, we can expect the issue of varying prices from shop to shop to be resolved to some extent by the first half of next year.
But, since gold prices are getting cheaper, another concern is fraud. Yes. I see that a lot too. These days, they sell a lot of gold on online live broadcasts and such. Also, I've heard stories about gold that looked identical to the real thing and even had similar physical properties when bitten, but turned out to be tungsten.
How can we filter out fake gold? The biggest reason people get involved in and suffer from fake gold fraud is that they look for ways to buy it as cheaply as possible. Using intermediary trading sites or dealing with unlicensed businesses that aren't properly registered are factors that ultimately link to issues with fake gold or gold that doesn't meet purity standards.
In the past, when gold prices weren't as high, it wasn't actually profitable to manufacture gold containing tungsten to meet less than the required content. Ah, that was more expensive to do. Yes. However, now that gold prices have skyrocketed, putting tungsten powder inside—when you actually melt a 1kg gold bar, you might only recover about 999g or more.
Hmm. Well, someone melted down 1kg of gold, but only 600g came out. Wow, that's a huge ripoff. So where did the 400g go? This is a true story, and the reason we found out was that last year, gold bars containing tungsten powder became a major issue. This doesn't represent the whole industry, but these isolated incidents have caused consumers a lot of worry.
Since gold is something you usually hold onto for a long time as an investment, rather than being overly sensitive to price and looking for the cheapest place, I recommend using businesses where you can guarantee the quality even if you have to pay a fair price, so you can avoid potential disputes when you decide to sell the gold later.
It's hard for ordinary consumers to tell what "certified" means because many signs give the nuance that a gold exchange is "nationally certified." There seem to be a lot of places like that, but in reality, they are all private. How should we distinguish them ? Yes. They are all private. The Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation does make and sell gold bars.
Aside from that, most gold exchanges on the market are privately operated. Consumers have probably noticed that many traditional jewelry stores have changed their names to " gold exchanges." In times like this, consumers must keep this in mind and be extra careful. Last year, because there was so much gold trading, many people opened "certified" or "so-and-so" gold exchanges, thinking it was a profitable business.
But as time goes on, these exchanges will inevitably undergo a correction, and some will survive while others won't. It’s similar to how, when the domestic diamond market was booming in the past, diamonds without appraisals were imported, and domestic appraisal labs issued certificates based on their own criteria.
Now that diamond demand has plummeted, almost all those diamond appraisal labs are gone, except for the top one or two. Hmm. So, consumers who bought diamonds with certificates from those labs face significant limitations when they try to sell them later and want to get a fair price. So, I believe these are points that consumers definitely need to double-check.
Of course, I'm not saying the products from these gold exchanges fall short in purity, but what if the gold exchange where you made a purchase disappears after a long time? If any issue regarding purity were to arise from the production process, it becomes quite ambiguous as to who should be held accountable.
Therefore, considering such factors, I highly recommend that you check which company will take responsibility for the gold bar you bought until the very end, and ensure you trade with such a company. I believe we are in an era where the gold market, too, must offer standardized quality, high purity, and a solid company reputation to ultimately be recognized by consumers.
Yes. Today, we've looked at the points to keep in mind when investing in gold, emphasizing that you should always deal with a reliable source. With that, I think it's time for us to say goodbye for today. Thank you. Thank you.
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