TLDR:
- Gold rose to $5,390 on February 28, but was down 4% by March 4, hitting $5,093.
- Since the start of the Iran war, oil is up 13% and jet fuel is up 140%, while gold is up just 2.3%.
- Dollar strength from inflation expectations has historically outperformed gold during the first phase of the energy crisis.
- Goldman Sachs is targeting $6,300 for gold by the end of 2026, leaving a $1,207 gap that the market has yet to price.
Gold should have exploded when the Iran war started, but it didn’t. This unexpected limitation is now a central question in institutional analysis worldwide.
Since the American and Israeli attacks on February 28 killed the supreme leader of Iran and closed the Strait of Hormuz, gold has increased in price by only 2.3 percent.
Brent oil rose 13 percent. Airplane gasoline increased by 140 percent. For seasoned market watchers, understanding why gold is holding up is more important than the price itself.
Why did gold stay calm while all other crisis assets moved
The battle began with dramatic force. US-Israeli strikes destroyed twenty Iranian warships in 48 hours and blocked an important international shipping line.
Gold briefly rose to $5,390 a day on February 28. However, by March 4, just six days into the Middle East’s biggest military campaign since the Persian Gulf War, gold was down nearly 4 percent in a single session.
The answer to the gold limit is in dollars. A spike in oil does not immediately trigger the purchase of safe-haven gold. Instead, it activates the inflation expectations channel, which strengthens the dollar and strengthens real yields. This is a macro environment where gold has historically underperformed other assets.
Analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera put it clearly in a widely circulated post. “This is not a failure of gold,” he wrote, describing gold temporarily outperforming the dollar during the initial phase of the inflationary shock. The dollar rose following the movement of oil, and gold was expected. This sequence is not random – it is structured.
Gold should have exploded when the Iran war started. It didn’t happen. Understanding why this did not happen is more important than the price itself.
On February 28th, when US and Israeli strikes killed Khamenei, blockaded Hormuz, and destroyed twenty Iranian warships in forty-eight hours, gold rose dramatically… pic.twitter.com/I3XeySDAF7
— Shanaka Anslem Perera 
(@shanaka86) March 6, 2026
The Fed now faces three competing pressures. Inflation caused by oil requires an increase in the exchange rate. The growth spurt associated with war calls for a reduction. Financing a war requires making money.
Markets first read the inflation signal and bought dollars instead of gold. Therefore, the numbers are the same as they are today.
Understand the two-step pattern that explains what comes next
Every major geopolitical crisis in modern history has followed the same two-stage sequence. The first phase sees the dollar strengthen on inflation expectations, trailing gold.
The second phase begins when sustained economic damage becomes apparent, the likelihood of a recession increases, and markets shift from price inflation to cash deflation.
In 1973, this second phase took about six months and yielded a 73 percent profit. The Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 compressed the timeline because the conflict was geographically contained. In 2026, the duration of the Hormuz eruption will determine when and if the second phase will occur.
Goldman Sachs has already moved its gold target to $6,300 at the end of 2026, assuming a prolonged shutdown of Hormuz. The price of gold today reaches 5,093 dollars. This leaves a gap of $1,207 in the market yet to be priced.
According to Perera, the gap exists because the market is still betting on a short war, while the evidence points to a longer one.
The $5,000 support level is a technical number that every trader is watching right now. The meeting of the Fed on March 18 and the UN Security Council meeting on March 10 are the next important events.
If support is maintained through both, the base of the second stage remains unchanged. Gold didn’t explode when the Iran war started – but the underlying structure points to the delay, not the direction, which is what analysts got wrong.
The gold article must have exploded when the Iran war started: That’s why it didn’t appear on Blockonomi first.
