Metals Market Report Archive

April - May 1, 2026 - Week 5 Edition

Major Investment Banks Predict Higher Gold Prices by Year-End 2026

Currently, the major European and U.S. investment banks have issued forecasts of healthy gold price gains in 2026 and now they have begun issuing price forecasts for 2027, with one $8,000 forecast.

First, let’s briefly review the latest major bank gold price projections as of the end of 2026:

In a survey of their 2027 gold price projections, we don’t see much change over 2026 – except for a new “bullish case” by Bank of America, even though they give this “bullish scenario” only a 30% chance of happening. In this scenario, Bank of America sees a chance of gold reaching $8.000 in 2027 if the recent “de-dollarization” trend continues, along with some help from more rate cuts from the Fed and rising institutional allocations to gold. (Note: This is not BofA’s base case but their most bullish case.)

Among some other main U.S. banks, their 2027 price projections range from $5,400 to $6,000 per ounce:

• Citigroup forecasts gold reaching $6,000 in 2027, if a major global wealth reallocation occurs (selling currencies and stocks to buy gold), causing enough shift in demand to overwhelm the relatively small physical gold market and force prices up. Citigroup sees U.S. investors as a key driver, with gold ETF inflows from the U.S. accounting for over 60% of global ETF activity in 2025.

• P. Morganand Goldman Sachs both predict gold reaching $5,400 by the end of 2027, due to central bank buying and rising gold ETF inflows.

These forecasts of gold price increases are important to gold investors as well as rare coin investors since history has shown us that a rising gold price generates more widespread advertising from bullion sales firms, creating more gold investors, pushing gold higher faster, in a “virtuous circle” of rising demand.

Following those types of moves, we have seen that in one to two years after a major rise in gold, about 1 in 5 to 1 in 6 (15% to 20%) of these bullion buyers become first-time numismatic coin buyers. This is a far narrower market than bullion, thereby driving many key rarities up faster than the rise in bullion. Today, gold is down over short-term concerns about Fed policies but that will change under new Fed leadership, and the Fed has no real control over massive overspending by Congress, which is the key engine pushing gold up and the dollar down.

Even though we welcome positive gold price predictions by the major investment banks, we can also note that there is not much change between their forecasts for 2026 and 2027, as these banks tend to “lose their nerve” when they see the “tale of the tape” turning against their past price projections. In essence, they take a “trend following” approach to the gold market without looking carefully at key fundamentals.

As trend-followers, this means when gold is rising in the short term, most of these banks will predict a gradual series of more increases in gold’s price. When gold is falling, they project further declines. In the middle – like now, when gold has no clear direction, up or down – they are prone to predict more of the same: A narrow trading range with no significant upside targets and no big fear of a big decline, either. Like the major investment banks, I also believe gold will trend upward and there is a case that can be made for $7,000 by the end of 2026 with the right circumstances in play.

In Contrast, the World Bank Forecasts “No Change” in Precious Metals

A perfect example of wishy-washy predictions came out this week, when pundits at The World Bank said gold now has a “ceiling” and won’t go anywhere (up or down) for the rest of 2026. I advise you to print this article and then post it on your refrigerator or desk to take a second look at year’s end! I don’t see the same, so-called, ceiling for gold as the World Bank.

Here’s the basic news report: “Commodity analysts at the World Bank see gold and silver prices capped near current levels through 2026.” This is despite the fact that “the analysts noted that the overall precious metals price index has increased by 84% compared to the first quarter of last year.”

However, since the rising price of most of the metals slowed down in April, the World Bank expects gold prices to remain at a boring (flat) average of $4,700 this year. In this prediction, they confuse the trend with the fundamentals!

In contrast, financial guru Steve Forbes and I examined gold’s fundamentals in October 2023 and saw huge gold gains in the coming year – even when most banks could not see any big changes coming. Gold was well under $2,000 when we forecast $2,500 in 2024, and we actually reached $2,500 gold in August of 2024.

It seems like the World Bank economists are trained to follow the herd and to not look extreme, which is of no help to their long-term investors, since gold’s gains in the 2020s are HUGE (measured each April 30): 

So, if the banks want to follow long-term trends, gold has virtually doubled in the past two years, from $2,291 to $4,553 and another doubling in the next two years would bring gold to over $9,000 in 2028!

Gold and Silver are down this week in anticipation of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, specifically in anticipation that the Fed would not cut the key interest rate in this meeting – the last to be chaired by Jerome Powell. With the Senate confirmation of Kevin Warsh this week, the next (mid-June) FOMC meeting will be chaired by the more fundamentally sound outlook of Warsh, a new Fed Chair who intends to cut the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and avoid more quantitative easing (QE), an inflationary blueprint followed by several recent Fed Chairs.

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