Given the government shutdown, a question I’ve heard a lot this week is whether gold should be considered a safe-haven. Perhaps — but in 2025, gold has been acting like anything BUT a boring safe haven. Thus, sometimes, the price action, itself, tells the story better than the headlines. This is one of those times. Here’s why: Coming into September, gold was sporting one of the most attractive technical formations. Price had moved sideways from April through August, logging a series of higher lows along the way that resembled a classic continuation pattern—a setup that GLD had successfully broken out of three prior times, as shown on the chart. While breakouts rarely unfold as perfectly as one might hope, this time GLD delivered as close to a textbook breakout and follow-through as we’ve seen over the past four weeks. The weekly RSI spiked near 80, which is an obviously stretched condition no matter the timeframe. This underscores how strong the trend continues to be, and how aggressively momentum traders were willing not only to buy the breakout but also to support it with follow-through buying—clear proof of conviction. We’ve seen this before. Since the beginning of 2024, each strong follow-through move has carried the weekly RSI to roughly 80. Some extensions lasted longer than others, but each time, these stretched conditions eventually required digestion. As of now, the breakout has already surpassed the measured move target near 340. With the RSI again stretched, the technicals suggest that another period of digestion could be approaching for GLD. Zooming out on the monthly chart back to 2014, we can see how this strong decade-long comeback has unfolded. Since 2016, GLD has cycled through long consolidation periods followed by breakouts, hitting targets, and then repeating the process. From this perspective, last year’s action can be viewed as a series of trading boxes, with each of the last three ultimately resolved to the upside. Even if GLD needs to take a breather now, the blueprint remains: consolidate, then potentially set up for the next leg higher. Of course, at some point one of these ranges could morph into a reversal pattern rather than a continuation, but given how strong GLD has been for so long, the focus should remain on monitoring digestion phases and buying the next breakout—when it happens. On the bottom panel, note that the last two months produced a 17.3% gain, the best two-month performance since at least 2014. Historically, other big two-month surges also required pauses, with gold/GLD consolidating before the trend resumed. So the key question is: if flows do exit GLD, where could they rotate? One area that has been underperforming in recent weeks is Bitcoin . We’ve talked about this recently — BTC has been setting up to potentially log another bullish short-term pattern. After a period of weakness, it has begun bouncing again over the past few days. On a relative basis, comparing Bitcoin to GLD going back to mid-2023, the BTC/GLD ratio line has been trending higher. Along the way, however, it has undergone several pullbacks, meaning Bitcoin has underperformed gold for months at a time. On the chart, we’ve highlighted periods where the RSI of the relative line reached or approached oversold levels. While this didn’t always mark the exact low, these oversold conditions tended to occur much closer to relative lows than highs. That dynamic suggests it could once again be time for capital to rotate more aggressively into Bitcoin, particularly as gold looks stretched in the near term. Here is the year-to-date performance chart of GLD versus Bitcoin. At various points this year, the two have been aligned in performance—notably in January and again from July through August. This suggests that gold’s current outperformance versus Bitcoin may be due for a pullback. We saw a similar setup in April: Bitcoin started to turn higher just a few days before GLD topped, which led to a long period of sideways action for gold and eventually allowed Bitcoin to catch up in terms of performance. Since mid-August, Bitcoin has been making lower highs and lower lows, while GLD has surged on its breakout, creating a sharp performance gap—GLD is now up more than 20% versus Bitcoin on a year-to-date basis. However, if this most recent bounce in Bitcoin is the beginning of a larger move higher—similar to April—then we could see Bitcoin catch up to gold, or conversely, gold give back relative gains to close the performance gap. No doubt, an important factor here is Bitcoin’s strong seasonality. Over the years, BTC has shown a consistent tendency to rally in October and November. This pattern is widely known, which means it can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy—especially after a typically subpar September. With that backdrop, capital could already be rotating back into Bitcoin as we move into Q4. Both October and November seasonality are key dynamics we’ll be watching closely in the weeks ahead. — Frank Cappelleri Founder: DISCLOSURES: None. All opinions expressed by the CNBC Pro contributors are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC UNIVERSAL, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet or another medium. THE ABOVE CONTENT IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY . THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DOES NOT CONSITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, TAX OR LEGAL ADVICE OR A RECOMMENDATION TO BUY ANY SECURITY OR OTHER FINANCIAL ASSET. 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