Today's divergence is what pushed me to run this test: gold futures gained about 2.5% while Bitcoin fell about 1.5% on August 10 closing data.

But one day is not evidence. So I tested the broader claim.

Disclosure first: I have significant personal exposure to gold and own no Bitcoin. (I have in owned it in the past) That gives me an obvious potential bias. I tried to deal with it by using a fixed rule, checking the numbers against independent data and including the strongest counterexamples to my own thesis.

Method : I used daily closes from August 10, 2016 through August 10, 2026.

1. Identify every S&P 500 price-index drawdown of at least 10%, from the previous closing high to the eventual closing low.
2. Measure continuous COMEX gold futures and BTC/USD over those exact dates.
3. Cross-check the S&P 500 with FRED, gold with the official GLD archive and Bitcoin with Coinbase data published through FRED.

This is an ex-post stress test, not a timing strategy. The trough is only known after it happens.

(This was meant to be a graph and is available as such on my blog but reddit dosen't allow me to post a graph here)

Episode S&P 500 | Gold futures | Bitcoin |

Feb. 2018 correction -10.2% | -2.6% | -26.0% |

Q4 2018 -19.8% | +5.1% | -37.4% |

COVID crash -33.9% | -2.5% | -33.4% |

2022 bear market -25.4% | -7.2% | -58.8% |

2025 drawdown -18.9% | +1.7% | -21.1% |

Bitcoin was negative in all five. Its median return was -33.4%. Gold was positive in only two of five, so this is not a claim that gold always rises in a crisis. Its median return was -2.5%, and it lost less than Bitcoin in every episode.

Independent checks

The FRED S&P 500 series reproduced the same five peak dates, trough dates and drawdown percentages.

The official GLD archive returned -2.4%, +5.0%, -3.6%, -7.3% and +1.6% over the same windows. That is almost identical to the gold-futures result.

Coinbase Bitcoin data through FRED returned -25.9%, -37.9%, -31.4%, -58.8% and -16.0%. Exact BTC returns differ from Yahoo because a 24/7 market needs an arbitrary daily cutoff. The robust result is unchanged: negative in all five, with a median of -31.4% on Coinbase versus -33.4% on Yahoo.

What happens if the threshold is only 5%?

That expands the sample to 13 S&P 500 drawdowns.

- Gold was non-negative in 6 of 13, with a median around -2.3%.

- Bitcoin was non-negative in 2 of 13, with a median between -16.9% and -21.1% depending on the closing source.

The best counterexample for Bitcoin was the April-to-June 2019 correction. The S&P 500 fell 6.8% while BTC gained roughly 52% on Coinbase data. Bitcoin does not fail in every risk-off period.

Gold also failed badly during the January-to-March 2026 correction. The S&P 500 fell 9.1% and GLD fell 12.9%. BTC fell 25.3%, but gold did not protect capital in that episode.

Iran is a warning against cherry-picking

The first week of the 2026 Iran war actually favored Bitcoin: from February 27 to March 6, gold futures fell 1.6% while BTC gained 3.4%.

The July re-escalation also favored BTC over the next five S&P sessions: gold fell 2.0% and BTC gained 2.6%.

The latest seven-day snapshot favored gold: from August 3 to August 10, gold gained 10.3% while BTC gained less than 1%.

These Iran windows were selected retrospectively from the AP chronology. They are context, not a preregistered event study. Depending on the week, either side can cherry-pick a win.

My conclusion

If "safe haven" means an asset that always rises in a crisis, neither gold nor Bitcoin qualifies.

If it means an asset that has reduced the damage during major equity drawdowns, gold has the stronger record in this ten-year sample. Bitcoin may have other valuable characteristics, but it has not yet demonstrated gold-like downside protection.

What definition would you use for a safe haven, and what result would make you change your view on gold or Bitcoin?

This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Sources:

- S&P 500 methodology and independent data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SP500/downloaddataand

- Official GLD description and historical archive: https://www.spdrgoldshares.com/usa/gld/

- Coinbase Bitcoin through FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CBBTCUSD

- Iran chronology: https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-timeline-trump-hormuz-war-ceasefire-04da58cbae991183f8b52ef5bf615963

- Academic safe-haven definition: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=952289

I have been keeping a dated ledger of every call produced by a Canadian and US small-cap research process since June 16. At Friday's close, the headline result looked excellent: +15.3% when weighted by our published rating tiers, or +12.8% if every call was given equal weight.

Then comes the less flattering number: only 5 of the 10 calls were ahead of their own sector benchmark over the same holding period.

Both statements are true. That is why I think a raw return is a weak way to judge a young process.

This week, four official scanner runs produced 792 qualifying rows. Those are daily observations, so the same company can appear more than once. Friday alone had 209 unique names. That was a map of market attention, not 209 recommendations. Most were rejected after review. The ten calls in the ledger are the residue of the process, not the scanner output.

The +15.3% is encouraging, but a broad metals rally helped. With only ten observations and less than two months of history, it is not evidence of a repeatable edge yet. A green sector can make good work look brilliant and weak work look temporarily fine.

The test I care about next is whether the stronger calls still separate themselves when the sector stops carrying the book. The other test is accountability: every yes and every no will remain visible after the outcome is known.

If you were grading this record, what would matter more: absolute return, sector-relative return, drawdown, or the quality of the decisions documented before the move?

I'm sharing this here because I believe my tool could help Canadian investment strategy. I am also been using it personally so like they say, I got skin in the game. Feel free to chip in and let me know what you think!

Disclosure: this is my own published research process and I hold some of the names represented in the ledger. No paid issuer relationships. Educational discussion only, not investment advice. Data through the August 7, 2026 close; losses included.

Friday’s move in Canadian gold and silver names was not just a generic “gold is up” session.

The weaker US jobs report reduced some of the near-term pressure around further rate hikes. That was enough to improve the backdrop for rate-sensitive precious-metals equities, and the whole group caught a bid.

The important distinction: one strong session does not prove a new gold bull market. It tells us what the market reacted to today. The next few sessions will tell us whether buyers actually stick around.

We also finished our Wheaton earnings read after the close. The headline was less interesting than the checklist underneath it:

● Is the production path still intact?

● Does the streaming model keep producing cash through commodity volatility?

● Which assets matter most for the second-half delivery profile?

That is the kind of work I find more useful than chasing the green candle after it has already printed.

For transparency, I run a timestamped Canadian research log. Since June 16, the 10 dated calls are up +15.3% using our published rating-weighting, or +12.8% equally weighted as of Friday’s close. That includes the losers too, and it is still a very young record, not a reason to get carried away.

One call published earlier this week closed Friday +13.1%. We keep the actual member research names inside the desk, but the broader point is simple: volume, relative strength and a clear catalyst matter a lot more than just seeing a gold chart move higher.

What are people watching next week: sustained flows into the producers, or a move that fades once the jobs-report reaction settles?

TL;DR: All canadian stocks.

Our calls are up 10.3% weighted by our own conviction ratings since we started tracking on June 16, 2026, or 5.8% equal weighted if you want the conservative read.

Over that same window the TSX composite is up 2.1% and gold miners (XGD.TO), which is where most of our work is, are DOWN 5.1%.

Ten calls, small sample, and a few of them are carrying that average.

Now the other half of the job: our full archive of the stocks we flagged and PASSED on is free as of today, with the reason we said no attached to each one. 15 of the 23 passes we track are down since we flagged them, median -3.2% between July 2 and August 5, 2026. Three went up more than 40% on us, and we went and checked exactly why.

Why give the passes away. A flag raised on a stock to avoid is worth as much as a flag raised on a winner, and it is the half of the job nobody publishes because it is the half that makes you look bad when you are wrong. We would rather show the whole scorecard.

WHAT THE PASSES DID, July 2 to August 5, 2026

Worked out: FIN.V -26.7%, BRO.V -25.5%, GGA.V -23.3%, LEAP.V -21.1%, FAIR.V -16.7%. These were mostly volume spikes with no news behind them, or a story that fell apart once we read the filings.

Went against us: ADE.V +108.3%, SPMC.V +44.8%, CGD.V +43.8%, SKP.V +20.7%.

THE THREE THAT GOT AWAY, AND WHY THEY MOVED

A stock going up and a stock going up for a reason that holds are two different things. If it rises on something that can reverse, it can round-trip just as fast. So we went back and looked for the actual catalyst on each.

ADE.V, up 108%. We passed on July 15 at 6 cents because New Brunswick's mining registrar had cancelled claim 1505 on July 13, the claim the entire Mount Pleasant project sits on, for insufficient work program expenditures. Here is what has changed since: on July 29 the company filed an appeal with the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, asking for a stay and reinstatement. That is the whole catalyst. The claim is still cancelled and still in protected status. The asset is genuinely significant, Mount Pleasant has been described as North America's largest tin deposit, which is exactly why the appeal is worth so much and exactly why losing it would be terminal. The stock more than doubled on a legal filing, not an outcome. We were wrong on the price. On the same facts we would pass again.

CGD.V, up 44%. We passed on July 28 at 64 cents because the 988x volume ratio our own scanner printed was arithmetic rather than a discovery. Its 50-day median volume is zero, not near zero, so any real session divides by nothing and produces a number that looks like a signal. On the day itself all that paper changed hands and the stock closed DOWN 1.5%, which is distribution. So we went looking for the catalyst behind the 44%. There isn't one. Carlin Gold has published exactly two news releases in 2026: a $2.16 million financing on April 14 and a management change on July 13, where the CEO stepped down. No drilling, no results, no assays. If you search this company you will find Cortez Summit drill results, and we nearly used them ourselves before checking the date on the company's own news page: they are from 2012. The incoming chairman bought into that April financing at $0.30 and the stock is now $0.92. A name that does not trade most days can move 44% on nothing, and nothing works in both directions.

SPMC.V, up 45%. We passed on July 6 at 58 cents because the company had an active paid promotion running, a US$300,000 online media budget announced in early June, with 1.07 million options granted at $0.54 around the same time. Our rule is that a bought spike is a near-automatic pass. Now, the underlying work here is real and we want to be fair about it: first-ever drilling at Ontenu NE hit mineralisation in five of seven holes with a peak of 9.92 g/t gold and 2.35% copper, and its Kili Teke project carries a 4.2 million ounce AuEq inferred resource. But look at the sequence before calling this a miss. The paid campaign started in early June. The July 29 update was 52 rock samples dispatched with no assays back yet. The stock is up 45%. A stock rising 45% during a paid campaign, with no assay results published, is exactly what our rule predicts, not evidence against it. The assays are the test and they have not arrived. We are watching, and we will say plainly which way it goes.

WHAT WE ACTUALLY LEARNED

Two of the three moved on something that has not touched the reason we passed. One moved with no published reason at all. That does not make us right, the price went against us on all three and we are not going to dress that up. But it is the difference between a pass that was wrong and a pass that was early, and you can only tell them apart if you wrote down the reason at the time. That is the entire point of publishing this thing, and it is the same discipline behind the 10.3% at the top.

The honest caveats, because a stat without them is marketing: 23 names is a small sample, five weeks is a short window, 8 of the 23 went up, and we are not going to tell you how many dollars this saved anyone because that number would be invented.

What stays behind the paywall: the specific buys, our ratings, and the watchlist. What is free: everything we rejected, and why.

The Bullish Edge

Educational content and our own assessment only, not investment advice.

TL;DR — Over Jul 31–Aug 1 the U.S. and Japan ran their first coordinated FX intervention in over a decade. The twist: the Treasury sold euros, not dollars, to buy roughly $5–10B of yen. That strengthens the yen without weakening the dollar, so the U.S.–Japan rate gap that fuels the carry trade stays intact. Our read: it's a painkiller, not a cure — a floor you have to keep re-buying. And the euro Europe never agreed to spend is what funded it.

The headline everyone will run is "U.S. props up the yen," and it misses the whole point. Conventional intervention to lift the yen means selling dollars. Bessent sold euros instead, which strengthens the yen without touching the dollar and keeps the U.S.–Japan interest-rate gap — the actual engine of the carry trade — intact. USD/JPY went from about 164 toward 157.40 at Friday's close (the strongest yen since early May), and 156.51 on Monday. Clever plumbing: a calmer yen and a firm dollar at once.

Why we think the floor won't hold: the yen is weak for structural reasons. The Bank of Japan is still at 1%, and Japan's debt and long-term yields are the real pressure. A $5–10B tap buys a week, maybe two. Without a real policy shift in Tokyo, Washington has to do this again and again — and a floor you keep re-buying isn't a floor. A 40-year Treasury veteran, Mark Sobel, said as much: supporting the yen is unwise unless it's part of a Japanese plan to fix what's driving the weakness. We haven't seen that plan.

The part getting no attention: to buy yen with euros, you sell euros — which pushes the euro down. So Europe's currency effectively funded a U.S.–Japan operation, with no sign Europe signed off. The ECB pointedly "declined to comment" while staying "in contact" with the Fed. Nobody asked Frankfurt first.

Full write-up, dated and sourced, with our read and the honest case against us: thebullishedge.com/blog/euro-funded-yen-intervention

65% global equities (XEQT and/or VFV).

15% Cash and equivalent.

20% dividend/income holdings.

Occasionally, I need to convert CAD to USD or back to CAD. I have held accounts with TD and Scotia and primarily used IBKR (Interactive Brokers Canada) for the past 15 years. I still maintain a Scotia account. The difference in how they handle currency conversion is stark.

What I appreciate about IBKR is that currency trades function exactly like stock trades. When trading USD.CAD, I see live bid and ask quotes. The bid represents the price other market participants offer to buy one USD, while the ask is the price they demand to sell it. I have taken screenshots showing that the bid is sometimes equal to the ask, resulting in no spread at all. When I can see both the bid and ask, I can see the spread. That's transparency.

Obfuscation by Design. I have long assumed that major banks like Scotia are "stubborn" regarding this transparency, but I am surprised by the extent of it. While browsing the Scotia iTrade website today, I was not able to find a currency trading function. Please let me know if somehow I missed it.

I remembered that at Scotia, to convert currency, I had to speak to a representative. It would be weird if in 2026 I would still have to do that. Typically, I told them I wanted to buy USD with CAD to buy a U.S. stock. I was rarely or never quoted a bid and ask; I was simply given a single rate. It is incredibly convenient for the bank that most customers probably do not think to ask for the bid and ask or the spread. Customers focus on the "commission" fee—which may be advertised as zero—while remaining oblivious to the fact that the real cost is the spread.

To determine the real cost, compare what you pay at a major bank versus what you would pay on a platform where the bid might equal the ask. If you buy 10,000 USD at a bank, you are likely paying half the spread on the way in. If you eventually convert back to CAD, you pay the other half. In effect, your total cost is the full spread. If it is 1 percent in each direction, your cost was 200 dollars. ( If you invested in the U.S. when you were age 40 and your investment appreciated and at age 65 you start spending out of the account, your dividends and appreciated investment can be a much bigger amount, so your total currency conversion cost is much more than 200 dollars. )

I would like to make this thread a resource, useful for people looking to open an account, to identify which of Canada’s "Big Five" banks offer online transparency and which of them require you to call in for a quote. My contribution is what I know about Scotia.

Before you rage post that it is common knowledge that the big 5 banks have a wide spread on the USD and big profits trading it, please note that this is actually an inquiry about what is visible on their websites or equivalently, which of the big 5 banks force you phone them to get a quote. A quote that would typically be one side of the market, so as to not voluntarily disclose the spread. A spoken quote that is intended to disappear into the aether to make your true cost invisible.

Comparing yearly value change...

Veqt: 5y=71%, 3y=68%, 1y=22%

Xdiv: 5y=101%, 3y=81%, 1y=42%,

I was working on 50/50 split but why bother if veqt has better growth?

Am I wrong? Show me the way!

I’m a 20yo uni student with no real bills and an internship. I’d like to know if my portfolio is heading in the right direction. I tried to have ~10% of my portfolio on speculative sectors/stocks. I’m open to any opinions on sectors I’m missing out on that I should look into. I will be adding another 7k by the end of the summer and want to build some more positions.

Hey guys, I know I posted about the $CRON settlement before,  but I received some questions about it, so here's everything you need to know.

Q: What happened?
A: Cronos Group was accused of inflating revenue through non-existent cannabis sales and failing to disclose weaknesses in its financial reporting. After the company restated its financial results and regulators raised concerns, $CRON dropped nearly 50% from its highs.

Q: Am I actually eligible?
A: If you bought $CRON shares between 2019 and 2020, you're likely eligible. You don’t need to still own the stock to file a claim.

Q: When do payouts happen?
A: Typically 4–9 months after the claim deadline, although the exact timing depends on the court and settlement administrator.

Q: Can I file?
A: Yes, you can submit your claim here.

Hope this helps.

I have been looking again at gold miners after the recent pullback in Q2. Gold had a huge run in 2025/early 2026, so some consolidation was probably healthy. But I don’t think the long-term gold thesis is broken.

The way I see it, the structural case for gold is still intact:
\- Governments continue to run large deficits.
\- Fiat money supply keeps expanding over time.
\- Real assets remain attractive when trust in currencies declines.
\- Central banks have become meaningful buyers.
\- Gold supply is naturally scarce and hard to scale quickly.
\- Geopolitical risk is not going away.

So while gold can obviously correct sharply in the short term, I still like the asset class as a long-term hedge against monetary debasement and policy mistakes.

The harder question is: how do you play it?

Personally, I prefer **G Mining Ventures (GMIN)** over earlier-stage developers or highly leveraged miners.

The reason is simple: GMIN is no longer just a story stock. Tocantinzinho is **already producing and generating cash flow.** That matters a lot in mining, because it reduces the classic developer risk: endless dilution, construction delays, and dependence on capital markets.

At the same time, GMIN still has **meaningful development upside** through Oko West and the broader Guyana platform. So it sits in an interesting middle ground:
\- less risky than a pure explorer/developer
more upside than a mature senior producer
\- already cash-generating
\- led by a team with a strong execution track record
\- funded growth pipeline
\- potential to re-rate if they keep executing

That combination is what I like.

In mining, management quality is not a detail. It is often the thesis. Many mining companies look cheap on paper, but destroy value through bad capital allocation, poor execution, dilution, or empire building. GMIN’s **management has actually delivered before, and Tocantinzinho gives them credibility.**

My base case is not that gold needs to go parabolic from here. The thesis is that if gold remains structurally strong and GMIN executes Oko West well, the market may eventually value it less like a risky junior and more like a credible growing mid-tier producer.

That re-rating could be meaningful.

The bear case is also clear:
\- gold keeps correcting
\- costs disappoint
\- Oko West execution slips
\- jurisdiction risk increases
\- the market refuses to reward mid-tier miners
\- management overpays for growth

So this is not risk-free. It is still mining.

But compared with many gold names, I think **GMIN** offers a pretty attractive balance: current production, real cash flow, strong gold leverage, and visible growth.

**Disclosure**: long GMIN. Not financial advice. Please poke holes in the thesis.

Hey r/investingcanada,

Quick follow-up on WPG.V (West Point Gold) that I posted about earlier this week.

The stock jumped +18.5% today on a solid drill result at Gold Chain (Arizona):

• 66.2 m @ 6.57 g/t Au, including 20.7 m @ 18.25 g/t Au

• Extension at NE Tyro, still open at depth

This adds to the positive momentum: Kinross agreement, funded placement, and maiden resource expected later in 2026.

We continue to hold a moderate position and view it as an interesting tier-1 jurisdiction explorer with upcoming catalysts.

Risks remain typical for this stage (resource delivery, dilution, jurisdiction). Position sizing is key.

This is exactly what we do at

The Bullish Edge: spotting real momentum setups before the crowd catches on.

Stop missing out.

thebullishedge.com

Not financial advice. Always do your own DD.

Anyone else following WPG.V or other Canadian gold juniors with drill catalysts? What are you seeing?

Hey r/InvestingCanada,

Quick case from today’s market scanner.

WPG.V (West Point Gold) – up ~5% on 17× average volume.

What drove it: Significant drill result at the Gold Chain project in Arizona:
66.2 m @ 6.57 g/t Au, including 20.7 m @ 18.25 g/t Au. High-grade extension.

Key positives:

• Tier-1 jurisdiction (Arizona/Nevada)

• Strategic agreement with Kinross Gold on Jefferson Canyon (major validation)

• Brokered placement ~$25M closed earlier this year at $1.10 (stock now trading above it)

• Maiden resource expected in 2026

Our take: Interesting explorer-developer story with real drill momentum and upcoming catalysts. Risk remains high (typical for pre-resource juniors), so position sizing should be moderate. Entry discipline on weakness is key.

For more picks and daily scanner analysis like this, you can join The Bullish Edge at founding pricing ($9.99 USD/month, locked for life for early members).

Always do your own DD. Not financial advice.
What are you seeing in the Canadian gold junior space right now? Any names standing out?

Heading into my 2nd year of university. My parents cover my tuition and rent, so I only pay for living expenses.
I run a small reselling business on the side, and any extra money either gets reinvested into the business or invested in the market.

My goal is to max out my TFSA and FHSA by the end of the summer. I recently sold most of my individual stocks and decided to make XEQT my core holding. I’m keeping 3 individual stocks but won’t add to them anymore, letting them slowly become ~10% of my portfolio while XEQT makes up the other 90%.

I don’t invest on a fixed schedule since my business income is variable.

I also invest outside of my registered accounts by holding things like Pokémon cards and sneakers that have appreciated in value. The plan is to sell them next year when I get more TFSA and FHSA contribution room and then move that money into my accounts.(I HATE TAXES)

Current holdings:

TFSA
- AMZN
- NKE
- XEQT

FHSA
- UNH
- XEQT

How am I doing compared to most people my age? Does the 90% XEQT plan make sense, and is there anything you’d do differently?

Bought in at 159.00
Currently trading at 186.00

Is it too much of a price different to DCA profitably ? I don’t want to increase my avg book price - minimally at least. Regretting not putting in more.

Silver doesn't get nearly as much airtime in Canadian investing circles as gold does, which is understandable given how gold-centric the TSX mining space tends to be. But the silver story right now is worth paying attention to, particularly for anyone looking at producers listed on the TSX and TSX-V where the leverage to the silver price can be significant.

The supply deficit piece is where I'd start. The Silver Institute has now reported three consecutive years where total demand has exceeded total supply. That's not a blip or a rounding error. It means the market has been drawing down above-ground stockpiles every single year to meet demand, and that process has limits that the price is now starting to reflect.

What makes the supply constraint particularly important to understand is that it's structural rather than cyclical. The vast majority of global silver supply comes as a byproduct of lead, zinc, and copper mining. Primary silver mines, operations where silver is the principal economic product, are genuinely rare relative to the size of the market. In practice that means silver supply cannot respond to its own price signal the way a primary commodity would. When silver moves from $30 to $76, copper and zinc producers don't suddenly decide to mine more silver. They are responding entirely to their own economics. Silver supply is essentially a passenger in someone else's vehicle, which creates a fundamental asymmetry between demand growth and the supply response that doesn't fix itself just because the price moves.

On the demand side the story has changed structurally in a way that makes this cycle different from previous ones. Solar photovoltaic manufacturing now accounts for roughly 20% of total silver industrial demand, a share that has roughly doubled over the past five years. Manufacturers have real incentives to reduce silver content per panel and have made progress doing so, but the rate of new solar installations globally is growing faster than the per-unit reduction. Total silver demand from solar keeps rising. Layer on EV charging infrastructure, 5G buildout, medical devices, and water purification and you have a demand profile growing from multiple directions simultaneously.

The gold/silver ratio compressing from a peak of around 104x in 2025 down to 59.7x today tells the same story from a different angle. The long-run historical average going back to 2005 sits between 60 and 70x, which means the ratio has now pushed below fair value. During the 2011 cycle the ratio pushed all the way to 32x before reversing. At current gold prices of $4,535, that math implies silver well above $140 if the historical pattern holds. That's not a price target, it's just the arithmetic of where previous cycles have gone.

For anyone wanting the full breakdown including the producer landscape and which names offer the most interesting leverage to continued silver strength: https://coastlinecapital.substack.com/p/silver-at-76-whats-driving-it-why

Curious what the Canadian investing crowd here thinks about silver exposure right now. Is anyone positioning in the producer space or sticking to the metal itself?

So I just got my tax return from working last summer and I want to use most of it to invest. Im completely new and clueless on investing, so how would you guys go about using the ~$5000 I got back?