Gold Into Mid-April: China’s Premium Holds, India’s Festival Demand Hesitates, and COMEX Keeps De-Risking
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Gold finished the week ending April 11 in a market that looked firmer on the surface than underneath. Spot prices were on track for a third straight weekly gain, and by April 9 spot gold had risen to $4,789.67 per ounce while U.S. gold futures settled at $4,818.00. Yet the regional detail matters more than the headline. In China, premiums narrowed sharply from the prior week’s elevated levels, but bullion still traded at $3 to $5 per ounce above the global benchmark, and the People’s Bank of China extended its buying streak to a seventeenth consecutive month, taking official holdings to 74.38 million fine troy ounces. In India, demand improved slightly ahead of Akshaya Tritiya, but retail footfall remained weak and dealers were still quoting anything from a $6 discount to a $9 premium over official domestic prices, even with local prices easing from the highs. On COMEX, the main story remained de-risking: gold open interest had already fallen to 355,050 contracts by April 2, the lowest level in nearly seventeen years.
That combination gives a cleaner reading of the current gold market. China is still paying a premium and its central bank is still buying, but retail demand is not chasing price indiscriminately. India is seeing some festival-related interest, but the buying response remains restrained relative to normal seasonal patterns. COMEX, by contrast, is still operating with unusually light participation, which means the Western paper market is not yet confirming a broad speculative re-acceleration. Taken together, the market looks supported by official-sector buying and selective Asian demand, but not yet powered by a full return of leveraged enthusiasm.
China’s weekly gold data was notable not because premiums exploded, but because they did not disappear. Reuters reported that bullion in China traded at a premium of $3 to $5 per ounce over the global benchmark in the week of April 10, down from the prior week’s $12 to $17 premium. That is a meaningful narrowing, and it points to weaker retail demand at current prices. At the same time, it is still a premium. China did not flip into a discount market. That distinction matters because it shows that while jewellery demand remains soft, local pricing has not collapsed below international benchmarks.
The more important Chinese figure was official buying. The PBOC added gold for the seventeenth straight month, lifting reserves to 74.38 million fine troy ounces from 74.22 million a month earlier. The value of those reserves fell to $342.76 billion from $387.59 billion because spot gold dropped 11.52% in March, the steepest monthly price fall since 2008, but the quantity still rose. In other words, China used weakness to keep accumulating. That is a more durable signal than a one-week premium swing.
Reuters’ regional reporting added a useful split within China itself. Jewellery demand was described as weak, down roughly 25% year-on-year, while investment demand remained resilient though more selective. That split explains why premiums can narrow without turning negative. It also explains why official purchases matter so much right now: the investment and reserve side is carrying more of the market than ornaments and discretionary retail.
India’s weekly picture was softer than a normal pre-festival setup. Akshaya Tritiya falls on April 19 this year, and Reuters reported that retail buyers had started making bookings. Yet jewellers also said footfall was “far lower than normal,” and one Mumbai bullion dealer described purchases by jewellers ahead of the festival as negligible. Domestic prices were around 152,800 rupees per 10 grams on Friday after touching a three-week high of 154,934 rupees earlier in the week. In a market like India, where buying is extremely price-sensitive, that helps explain why bookings have picked up but the broader mood remains cautious.
Dealer quotes reflected that hesitation. Indian dealers were offering prices ranging from a discount of up to $6 an ounce to a premium of $9 over official domestic prices, inclusive of import and sales levies. The week before, the range had been a discount of up to $8 and a premium of only $2. That widening in the upper end of the quote range tells you there was some improvement in localized demand, but not enough to produce a clean, broad-based premium market. This is a more mixed signal than the headline “festival demand firms” might suggest.
The macro background in India also matters for gold. Reuters reported that the rupee had fallen to a record low past 95 per U.S. dollar, while the 10-year government bond yield rose to around 7.14%, its highest level in nearly two years, as markets priced the energy shock from the Iran conflict. At the same time, economists expected the RBI to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.25%. For local gold demand, that creates a two-sided effect: currency weakness and geopolitical risk are supportive, but higher yields and pressure on household budgets are not.
The COMEX signal remains the cleanest measure of Western participation, and it is still subdued. Gold open interest had fallen to 355,050 contracts by April 2, a level not seen in nearly seventeen years. Reuters’ March 31 reporting also showed U.S. gold futures settling at $4,678.60 after a rebound day, but noted that gold was still headed for its steepest monthly drop since October 2008. That combination is important: prices bounced, but positioning remained historically light.
By April 9, the futures market had improved in price terms, with June gold settling at $4,818.00 while spot rose to $4,789.67. But the context around that move was telling. Reuters attributed the gain largely to a weaker U.S. dollar and a fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire, not to a broad rebuilding of paper exposure. In other words, COMEX recovered in price before it recovered in conviction. That usually means the market is still reactive rather than fully re-committed.
This matters because low open interest changes how price moves behave. When participation is thin, rallies can extend quickly because there are fewer large positioning blocks to absorb them, but they can also fade quickly because there is not yet a deep base of committed longs. The current COMEX structure therefore looks less like an overcrowded top and more like an under-owned rebound.
Across China, India, and COMEX, the pattern is clearer when the figures are lined up side by side. China ended the week with a still-positive premium of $3 to $5 per ounce and a central bank that kept buying, even after an 11.52% monthly drop in spot prices. India saw domestic prices around 152,800 rupees per 10 grams, some improvement in bookings ahead of Akshaya Tritiya, but still-subdued footfall and a dealer market ranging from a $6 discount to a $9 premium. COMEX saw gold recover toward $4,800, but from a base of only 355,050 open contracts, which is historically thin by modern standards.
That is not the profile of a market in liquidation, but it is also not the profile of a market in broad speculative acceleration. China is still supportive, India is selective, and COMEX remains cautious. The week ending April 11 therefore looks less like a breakout week than a stabilization week: official and physical demand prevented deeper damage, while the paper market participated only partially in the rebound.
Our read is that gold enters the second half of April with a constructive but not yet explosive setup. Near term, the price area between roughly $4,650 and $4,850 per ounce looks like the key working range. The lower half of that range has already shown buying interest during the March washout and early-April recovery, while the upper end corresponds to the rebound highs seen this week. A decisive move above the $4,800 to $4,850 zone would matter because it would signal that price is no longer just recovering from oversold conditions but is starting to attract fresh conviction again. On the downside, a break back through the mid-$4,600s would suggest that dollar strength and yield pressure are still dominant. That range view is based on the week’s actual spot and futures prints and on the fact that COMEX participation is still unusually light.
Longer term, we still lean upward. The reason is not a generic “safe-haven” argument. It is that China’s central bank is still buying, Chinese prices are still above the global benchmark even after the premium narrowed, and India has not turned into a forced-seller market despite high local prices and weak retail footfall. That combination suggests the physical floor is still there. If COMEX open interest starts rebuilding from the current depressed base while China keeps accumulating reserves, then a retest of the $5,000 level later in 2026 is plausible. If COMEX stays thin and Asian retail demand remains selective, then gold may spend longer oscillating below that threshold. But the bigger picture still points to a market whose downside is being cushioned by official and regional physical demand rather than one that is losing its structural bid.
Hugo Pascal’s observation about the AU9999 contract hitting a 10-week volume high underscores the increasing significance of physical gold trading on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This trend not only highlights robust domestic demand in China but also reflects broader shifts in the global gold market toward physical-backed assets.
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