He Sold 4.08 Million Yuan of Gold at 840. The Next Day It Rebounded.

I

In the autumn of 2025, Sun transferred 4.08 million yuan out of his mobile banking app in three transactions.

The first was 2 million, the second 1.5 million, the third 580,000. After the last transfer, a message from his restaurant supplier popped up, asking whether the payment for goods could be settled early. He dismissed it, switched back to his gold account, and looked at the holdings page: 1,167 yuan per gram, all 4.08 million yuan in it.

He predicted it would reach 2,000 yuan by the end of the year. His basis was that over the past year the gold price had risen from 630 yuan to over 1,000, a gain of more than 70 percent. “Gold surged, and I couldn’t resist.” Those six words in the later news report were the entire decision process behind his purchase. He had not read the product prospectus for the gold accumulation product or filled out the bank’s risk assessment questionnaire. He never calculated whether the restaurant could survive a 20 percent drop in gold. What he looked at was the price chart, a line that went almost straight up.

That line made him feel that gold was “something certain to rise.”

II

Gold did not stop at 1,167.

The first week it fell to 1,120. He thought it was a normal pullback. The second week it fell to 1,080. He thought, “I’ll sell when it gets back to 1,150.” The third week it broke below 1,050. He moved his mental line to “I’ll leave when it rebounds to 1,100.” When it fell to 980, he changed his wording: “It’s already fallen this much. How much lower can it go?” When it fell to 900, he stopped checking the account every day. He turned off the gold price alerts from his mobile banking app.

Nine months passed. In those nine months, gold fell from 1,167 to 840, a drop of nearly 28 percent. In those nine months, the bank account manager sent him one risk assessment reminder. The risk threshold for the gold accumulation product had been raised from C1 to C3, and the system required him to retake the questionnaire. He replied, “Got it,” and did not open it.

In those nine months, he had enough time to do one thing: recalculate whether the restaurant’s cash flow could hold if gold fell to 800. He did not calculate that. What he calculated was “when gold will rebound.”

III

The gold price did not crush him. The restaurant’s cash flow did.

At the end of the month, the restaurant had to pay rent and supplier payments, and the cash flow was not enough. He went through three credit cards, and the combined limits were still 80,000 yuan short. He called two friends. One did not answer. The other said, “Things are tight for me too lately.” He sat on a plastic stool in the restaurant’s back kitchen, opened the mobile banking app, and looked at the number in the gold account: 840 yuan per gram, a paper loss of 1.14 million yuan.

He tapped sell.

4.08 million became 2.94 million. After signing the sell confirmation, he went to the front desk and looked at the cash flow ledger. He found that the money for tomorrow’s supplier payment had just arrived. If he had sold one day later, he could have left the gold alone.

The next day, gold went back to 870.

He looked at it once, then deleted the mobile banking app.

IV

Of the 1.14 million yuan, 280,000 was interest on credit loans borrowed for the restaurant’s working capital, and 860,000 was principal loss.

If he had executed “sell when it rebounds to 1,100” when gold fell to 1,050, the loss would have been just over 200,000. If he had opened the C3 assessment reminder when the bank sent it, the system would have told him: the gold accumulation product is a medium-risk product, and conservative investors are not advised to hold it in a full position. If he had kept even 10 percent of his money as emergency funds before buying, that 80,000 yuan would not have forced him to sell at 840.

None of these three “ifs” required predicting the gold price. They only required writing three things clearly before buying: at what level I admit defeat, what money cannot be used to buy gold, and whether I will listen when the bank says I am not suitable.

He did not write down a single one.

V

Later, he retook the bank’s risk assessment.

In the column “maximum loss you can bear,” he chose “within 10 percent.” The system popped up a line: based on your risk tolerance, you are not advised to purchase the gold accumulation product.

He stared at that line for a long time, then took a screenshot and saved it to his phone’s photo album.

In the album there was another screenshot: the gold price chart from the day he bought in the autumn of 2025. The two screenshots sat side by side, separated by nine months and 1.14 million yuan.