$XAU The valuation story of gold is so thin it’s no better than a scrap of draft paper. The price is propped up entirely by the order book; the longer it’s propped, the more violently it collapses. After digging through the valuation layers, you can’t even pull out a single metric that could serve as an anchor. What rises is nothing but emotional quicksand—one gust of wind and it collapses. The sell orders on the order book are nearly three times as thick as the buys; every rebound gets pinned back down by newly posted sells. The road signs for the drop have already been drawn.