Goldman Sachs has reaffirmed its positive stance on gold, keeping its year-end forecast of $5,400 per troy ounce after increasing its estimates for central bank demand and predicting that official-sector purchases will continue accelerating throughout the remainder of 2026.
The investment bank revised its internal tracking model for central bank gold demand after concluding that it had consistently understated buying activity since August 2025. Under the updated methodology, the 12-month moving average estimate rose to 50 tonnes per month as of March, compared with 29 tonnes under the earlier calculation.
According to the revised model, central banks are estimated to have purchased 66 tonnes of gold in January, a sharp increase from the previous estimate of 12 tonnes.
Goldman said the adjustment follows a widening discrepancy between declining gold inventories in London vaults and official U.K. trade figures. While bullion outflows from London storage facilities had continued to climb, British export data appeared to capture only part of those movements, indicating that some sovereign gold transactions were no longer being reflected in official statistics.
“We therefore adjust our nowcast by adding the discrepancy between London vault outflows and UK net exports as unrecorded sovereign gold flows,” Goldman strategists Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven said in a note.
Looking further ahead, Goldman expects central bank buying to average around 60 tonnes per month through 2026. The bank pointed to findings from its own central bank survey that showed “strong underlying interest in gold,” adding that recent geopolitical tensions “are likely to reinforce diversification over time — both for central banks and private investors.”
However, the strategists warned that near-term volatility remains possible. “Gold’s high liquidity makes it a natural source of cash if private investors face liquidity needs,” they wrote, noting the risk of a broader selloff if equity markets weaken due to higher interest rates or softer economic growth linked to geopolitical uncertainty.
Goldman’s demand-tracking model is based largely on U.K. customs and trade data because London’s over-the-counter bullion market handles the majority of sovereign gold transactions globally. Since the U.K. has very limited domestic gold production, bullion traded in the country must be imported before either being stored in London vaults or re-exported, making trade flows a useful indicator of where gold holdings are ultimately moving.
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