Goldman Sachs has blunt message on gold price for rest of 2026

Gold conscionable had its worst period successful implicit a decade. Goldman Sachs is not budging.

After golden fell much than 10% successful March 2026, its biggest monthly diminution since June 2013, Goldman Sachs reaffirmed its $5,400 per ounce year-end target.

Spot golden is trading astir $4,567 to $4,769 arsenic of April 1, good beneath the all-time precocious of astir $5,600 acceptable successful precocious January.

The bank's connection is direct. The March sell-off does not alteration the structural case. The buyers who drove golden higher are inactive there, and Goldman does not expect them to leave.

Goldman analysts Daan Struyven and Lina Thomas raised the bank's 2026 year-end golden people to $5,400 from $4,900 successful a enactment dated Jan. 22. The slope has maintained that people done the March decline.

The halfway statement is that backstage investors who bought golden arsenic a hedge against semipermanent macro risks, including fiscal sustainability concerns and doubts astir cardinal slope independence, are not selling. These positions, Goldman says, are "stickier" than the event-driven bets that unwound aft the 2024 U.S. predetermination due to the fact that the underlying concerns bash not resoluteness connected a known date.

"Risks to the upgraded forecast are importantly skewed to the upside due to the fact that private-sector investors whitethorn diversify further connected lingering planetary argumentation uncertainty," Struyven and Thomas wrote.

Goldman's model rests connected 3 structural pillars.

The archetypal is cardinal slope buying. Goldman forecasts that emerging-market cardinal banks volition acquisition astir 60 tonnes of golden per period successful 2026, arsenic countries diversify reserves distant from the U.S. dollar. China's cardinal slope extended its golden purchases for 15 consecutive months done January 2026, Central Banking reported.

The World Gold Council projects full EM cardinal slope purchases volition scope astir 850 tonnes successful 2026, per USAGOLD.

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The 2nd is ETF inflows. Western golden ETFs added astir 500 tonnes since the commencement of 2025, moving good up of what Federal Reserve complaint cuts unsocial would explain. Goldman expects a further half-point of Fed easing successful 2026, which it estimates adds astir $120 per ounce to gold's terms support.

The 3rd is what Goldman calls the "debasement trade." Concerns implicit semipermanent authorities indebtedness levels and monetary argumentation credibility are driving carnal barroom purchases by high-net-worth individuals and telephone enactment buying by institutions.