Gold hit RM636 per gram this month. Two years ago it was RM293. That's a 117% gain. The ringgit wasn't weakening during that run. It was getting stronger. The dollar went from 4.47 to 3.94.
That detail matters more than most people realise. The usual story for gold in Malaysia is that it wins when the ringgit falls. Currency depreciation stacks on top of the dollar price move, you get a double tailwind. That's been the narrative for years.
But that's not what happened here. This time gold won with the wind in its face. The stronger ringgit was working against Malaysian holders and it still doubled.
What actually happened
Gold in US dollar terms went from roughly $2,040 per ounce in January 2024 to $5,020 today. That's a 146% gain in two years. The strongest two-year run gold has had in a generation.
You don't earn dollars. You earn ringgit. In January 2024, at $2,040 per ounce with the dollar at RM4.47, one gram of gold cost you about RM293. Today at $5,020 with the dollar at RM3.94, that same gram is RM636.
+117%
Gold in MYR · Jan 2024 to Mar 2026
RM293/gram to RM636/gram
+146%
Gold in USD · same period
Ringgit strength cost ~29 percentage points
RM217k
What RM100k became
If held in gold since Jan 2024
How the ringgit headwind played out
Gold gain in USD terms+146%
Ringgit appreciation against USD−12%
Net gain in MYR after currency drag+117%
Most people tracking gold here were conditioned to watch the ringgit. When it weakened past 4.70 in late 2023, gold looked like a currency play and people started paying attention. Then the ringgit recovered, hit 3.88 at one point, its strongest since 2018, and a lot of people assumed the trade was over.
What they missed is that the trade was never really about the ringgit. It was about gold.
What everything else did
Asset
~2-Year Return
RM100k
Gold (MYR) winner
+117%
RM217,000
KLCI (total return)
~+11%
RM111,000
EPF (est. avg dividend)
~+11%
RM111,000
ASB
~+11%
RM111,000
Klang Valley property
+4 to 6%
RM104k–106k
EPF, ASB, and property are not useless. They are the backbone of most Malaysian financial plans. But if your entire net worth sits in those three buckets, you didn't participate in the best-performing major asset of the last two years.
Key Insight
The conventional Malaysian portfolio — EPF, ASB, property — is built for stability, not growth. Gold isn't an alternative to those. It's an addition. It does something the others don't: it moves independently of Malaysian growth, Malaysian policy, and the Malaysian financial system entirely.
Why gold moved this hard
Central banks kept buying. In 2023 and 2024, central banks bought over 1,000 tonnes of gold each year. Those were the two highest annual totals ever recorded. 2025 came in at 863 tonnes, still well above the decade average. Poland alone added 102 tonnes last year and raised its target allocation to 30% of reserves. When the institutions that control monetary systems are accumulating the asset, that tells you something about what they think is coming.
The dollar lost credibility. The ringgit didn't strengthen because Malaysia got dramatically richer. The dollar weakened. The DXY dropped about 11% over the past year. US federal debt crossed $36 trillion. Tariff policy is creating inflation without growth. Gold priced in dollars goes up when the dollar loses credibility. That's what happened.
Geopolitical risk got priced in permanently. The pattern over three years has been consistent. Every spike has had a higher floor than the last. The market stopped treating geopolitical risk as a temporary premium and started pricing it as a structural condition.
ETF inflows changed the demand picture. Gold-backed ETFs hit their highest quarterly inflows ever in Q4 2025, 175 tonnes in a single quarter. Retail investors who wouldn't have touched physical gold are now in through funds. That's a structural demand shift, not a trade.
Gold's best two-year run in a generation happened while Malaysia's domestic assets delivered single-digit returns. That's what an uncorrelated asset does when global conditions move.
What comes next
Nobody knows where gold goes from RM636. The conditions that drove the move haven't resolved. Central bank buying is structural. The dollar's credibility problem doesn't get fixed without fiscal discipline no political environment supports. Geopolitical tension isn't winding down.
The ringgit wildcard
The ringgit has been Asia's best-performing currency this year, up 11.4% against the dollar over 12 months. If it keeps strengthening toward 3.70, Malaysian gold holders will feel a headwind even if USD gold holds flat. Entry at these levels requires accepting more volatility than entry at $2,000 did. Size accordingly.
How to hold it without losing 8% to premiums
This is where most people mess up. They understand the thesis, decide to act, then get eaten alive by the spread between spot price and what they actually pay.
Physical bars and coins
Premium
3 to 5% over spot at Public Bank and Maybank. Kijang Emas coins from BNM trade at tighter spreads than most retail bars.
Best for
Full ownership, no counterparty risk. Plan to hold for years, not months — you need to clear the buy-in spread first.
Avoid
Buying jewellery as an investment. Workmanship charges add 15 to 30% to the metal price. You will not recover that on resale.
Gold savings accounts (Maybank, Public Bank, CIMB)
Premium
Buy/sell spread typically 2 to 4%. Can start from RM50.
Best for
Most practical option for retail investors. Instant liquidity, no storage, convenient. The trade-off is counterparty risk. The bank owes you gold, not gold itself.
Avoid
Treating it as a trading account. The spread eats you if you're moving in and out frequently.
Gold ETFs (TradePlus SPDR Gold MYR Hedged on Bursa)
Premium
Trades close to spot. Management fee ~0.4 to 0.5% annually.
Best for
Anyone already investing in equities. Buy and sell through your existing brokerage. No storage, exchange-traded liquidity. Cleanest option for most people.
Avoid
Nothing structural. Just don't buy and sell repeatedly — you're here for the long thesis, not the short trade.
Digital gold platforms (HelloGold, Versa, etc.)
Premium
Varies significantly. Check what you're actually paying versus spot before committing.
Best for
Low minimum entry, easy automation of regular purchases. Useful for building a position gradually.
Avoid
Putting serious capital here without reading the fine print on redemption. These are smaller operations than banks.
A University of Zurich study published this month found that an 85/15 equity-to-precious-metals split delivered higher long-term risk-adjusted returns than a pure equity portfolio going back to 1972. The conventional wisdom of 5% hasn't caught up with the data.
Gold doesn't replace EPF, ASB, or property. Those do specific jobs. Gold does something different. It holds value outside the Malaysian financial system, outside the dollar system, outside any single country's monetary decisions.
When all of those systems are under pressure at the same time — which is roughly the situation from 2022 to now — gold doesn't just protect. It compounds.
The actual point
Most Malaysians track gold in USD, see $5,000 per ounce and think it's expensive. But you earn ringgit, you spend ringgit, you retire in ringgit. The number that matters is RM636 per gram — and what it means for the purchasing power of everything you've saved.
Ascendant Collective
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