The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday, Sept. 4, edition that investors are wondering whether gold can sustain its record-breaking rally or if it will succumb to the curse of September. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post reports that bullion has dropped every September since 2017. Over that period, the average decline has been 3.2 per cent in September, easily the worst month of the year, and far below the monthly average gain of 1 per cent. It is a phenomenon that has perplexed economists who believe markets should behave more efficiently. September is also commonly the worst month for U.S. stocks, with average declines of more than 1.5 per cent in the S&P 500 over the past decade. The dynamic is far from reliable -- gold has actually risen in September over a three-decade horizon -- but one explanation for the recent weakness is that traders are buying bullion to take a defensive position over the increasingly turbulent summer months before selling on their return to the office in September. Fastmarkets analyst Boris Mikanikrezai says, "Before you go on vacation and get away from your screens, you want to hedge the risk that you have in the market, and one way you can do that is to buy gold."