Source丨Phoenix.com "Eye of the Storm"

Editor's note: As the price of gold soars, more and more people are starting to bet on gold, mortgage real estate and borrow money to speculate, and gold begins to have a bloodthirsty smell. This group of gold "gamblers" have similar characteristics and clearly knows that this is the "gambler mentality" and they all say that they have made the worst plan. However, when talking about the worst situation, the topic revolves around the firm "belief" of gold, believing that "gold will not fall below 700 yuan/gram." But no one can predict the future. Someone has experienced hell moments in the past 10 days.

01 "What you play is heartbeat"

On April 3, Zhang Qiang, a post-80s generation, bought 300,000 yuan in physical gold, plus the cost of 756 yuan/gram, a total of 400 grams, and the money comes from online loans.

"I'm just speculative." Zhang Qiang didn't dare to let his family know, nor did he dare to say how high the interest rate was. He just "gamble and see if gold can rise to more than my interest."

Such behavior is not an isolated case. In 2024, Au9999 Gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange rose 28%, and the opening price on January 2 at the beginning of the year was still 480.80 yuan/gram. In 2025, the opening price on January 2 was 614.80 yuan/gram, and the opening price on April 14 was 757 yuan/gram, an increase of 23%. The crazy rising gold price has spawned crazy arbitrage. On social media, after Zhang Qiang posted, many people talked about similar experiences.

Xiao Liang, born in the 1995, bought 500,000 yuan in physical gold, only 200,000 yuan was the principal and 300,000 yuan was the loan. She started a few days earlier than Zhang Qiang. She got married this year and bought three gold coins. Seeing the price of gold soared, she thought for 3 days. With the stable work within the system, she gave a loan of 300,000 yuan. From the end of March to the beginning of April, she bought gold one after another, with more than 680 grams of gold, and the average price was 727 yuan/gram.

Xiaoliang's loan interest rate is 2.8%, with an interest rate of 800 yuan per month. For two weeks, gold has now risen to 757 yuan per gram, and on the books, "I made more than 20,000 yuan in two weeks."

Zhang Qiang is unwilling to mention the interest on online loans to Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" and only admits that it can make money based on the 28% increase in gold prices in 2024. At the beginning of the year, Zhang Qiang thought about buying gold with online loans, but his father had an operation and was worried that he would use money in a hurry, so he was not determined. Seeing that the gold price surged this year, he finally made up his mind to buy it in early April, "If he did this at the beginning of the year, he would make 60,000 or 70,000 at this time."

But who can predict the future price of gold? In this gamble, they all said the same thing, "What you play is your heartbeat."

"Life is exciting." Xiao Liang is more than 10 years younger than Zhang Qiang. In this gamble about gold, her tone has the unique "scattering" of young people with small burdens. This type of young people have their accounting logic. The gold I bought with a loan "feels like I bought a house." Xiao Liang said that the interest I have to pay back every month is like monthly payment. "One person dares to resist the mortgage with an interest rate of 4%, so what are my 2.8% interest rate?"

There is another saying that also appeared in their mouths, "The risk is within the controllable range."

Zhang Qiang said that he did not have a car loan and a mortgage loan, and he could afford a 300,000 yuan online loan. In Xiao Liang's opinion, he has a house and a car. With the income within the system and the side job, he has an annual income of 220,000 yuan. A loan of 300,000 yuan is not stressful. "I have a friend who sells a house and makes a loan, and I spent more than 1 million to buy gold."

In their plan to make sure that gold is profitable and not lose money, it will be left if it loses. Gold will be released for 3 to 10 years, and the loan will expire in two years. Xiao Liang doesn’t think there will be any problems, “Are I not making money in the past two years? The loan can still be turned over when it expires.”

02 Gold is bloodthirsty, betting on human nature

But even after only holding on for just 10 days, Zhang Qiang still encountered a hellish moment.

On April 3, the first day Zhang Qiang bought, the gold price began to fall sharply. The Shanghai Gold Exchange Au9999 fell from the opening price of 735.9 yuan/gram to the opening price of 705 yuan/gram on April 7, a drop of 4%. In four days, Zhang Qiang lost tens of thousands of yuan, and the interest on online loans made him "every year's work was in vain."

"Did I not have a life to make money?" My family didn't know how much money Zhang Qiang invested in gold. He didn't dare to show depression at the darkest time. When he was feeling uncomfortable, he stood alone on the balcony and stood there for a while. His nervous mood continued until April 14, when the gold price rose to 757 yuan/gram, and Zhang Qiang barely recovered his capital, but this did not count the interest on online loans.

"These 10 days are too exciting," but Zhang Qiang does not plan to go back. He said he planned to hold it for a long time, but the term of this 300,000 online loan is 1 year. What is the gold price in one year? Whether it can outperform the interest, and how to repay the money at that time. Zhang Qiang seemed to have no time to think about it, and just said, "Let's see it then." Now, due to online loans, Zhang Qiang mentioned that life pressure is already extremely high.

Since I tasted the sweetness in two weeks, Xiao Liang recently borrowed another 300,000 yuan to buy gold. He had already obtained a loan of 600,000 yuan in his 20s, and his chips were getting bigger and bigger. The reason why she dared to do this is that in her answer, "stable work" makes it easy for her to take out loans, and "having never experienced the storm" gave her the courage to not be afraid of a tiger. However, what she didn't know was that in this bloodthirsty game, it was betting on human nature. As long as she was on the card table, only a few people could get off the car safely.

Under this kind of post on buying gold with loans, some netizens recalled their experience of buying gold in 2011. After the international financial crisis in 2008, demand for safe-haven aversion surged, and gold rose sharply, from about 183 yuan/gram in 2008 to a historical peak of 327 yuan/gram in 2011. The market was also very optimistic at that time, but after she bought it, gold began to have a slump for nine years. It was not until 2020 that the epidemic triggered a risk-haven aversion boom, and the price of gold rose to 386 yuan/gram. She held gold for 9 years before she recovered.

Regarding the recent surge in gold prices, Liang Yonghui, deputy secretary-general of the Gold and Silver Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, told Phoenix.com that the exceeding expectations of the "reciprocal tariff" policy has brought huge impacts on the US and even the global economy, causing the market's concerns about the risk of "stagflation" of the US economy and the global recession to continue to rise. Judging from the domestic situation in the United States, high tariffs have led to rising inflationary pressures, increasing consumer cost of living, and increasing economic growth risks and recession expectations. At the same time, the global trade pattern has suffered a severe impact, and the industrial chain and supply chain are facing adjustments. Against this background, gold prices rebounded sharply.

Global economic uncertainty has caused gold to continue to rise, attracting investors and causing some investors to start borrowing to speculate on gold. But this phenomenon has many risks.

"The market situation is changing rapidly," Liang Yonghui said that from a macroeconomic perspective, the current economic situation is complex, and factors such as tariffs and Fed policy adjustments are intertwined, aggravating market uncertainty. If investors enter the market with impulse loans only, they are very likely to encounter a "black swan" event. If a sudden major economic policy change leads to a sharp decline in gold prices, investors may face serious principal losses. Not only will they be unable to repay the principal, but they will also bear high interest rates, which will put personal finances in trouble.

"You can't blindly follow the trend just because the current gold price soars and buy when you see returns. You should look at market hot spots rationally and make decisions based on your own situation and the analysis and judgment of the market." Liang Yonghui suggested that investors can refer to the opinions of professional institutions and people more, but do not rely entirely, but have their own thinking and judgment.

Zhang emphasized that he was not investing, but speculating. Speculation is essentially a game between human nature and uncertainty. Between desire and reason, people often overestimate their own judgment and underestimate risks. In the dream of getting rich, similar plots are always repeated.

(In the article, Zhang Qiang and Xiaoliang are pseudonyms.)