Precious Metals

“While traditionally inflation and real yields have been the main drivers of gold prices, recently central bank buying has emerged as the primary catalyst behind the current gold price increase,” according to a recent research note by Bank of America’s Global Commodity Research’s Franciso Blanch and Irina Shaorshadze.

George Milling-Stanley, chief gold strategist at State Street Global Advisors, also believes central-bank buying will keep gold humming this year, but he also sees two additional drivers. 

Source – Fox Business

Central banks are expected to help keep gold’s stunning rally going this year with buying aimed at further diversifying reserves away from the dollar due to risks stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies.

Spot gold hit its latest record at $3,167.57 a troy ounce on Thursday for a gain of 19% since the start of 2025 and a hefty 71% rise since the end of 2022.

“Emerging market central banks currently hold around 10% of their assets in gold. They should really hold 30% of their assets in gold,” said BofA commodity strategist Michael Widmer.

“From the central banking perspective (uncertainty) means less incentive to add Treasuries into portfolios and more incentive to actually de-dollarise it,” he said.

Source – Reuters

Gold price have risen from Wednesday’s record close, propelled by fears that Trump’s tariffs will continue to hammer stocks and expectations that central banks will continue to hoard the precious metal. Gold futures for April delivery settled Wednesday at $3,139.90 a troy ounce, the latest notch in their 19% climb this year.

Source – The Wall Street Journal

Stocks recoiled on Wednesday, while safe-haven gold held near record highs as a nervous world awaited details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and investors fretted about the risks of an intensifying global trade war.

“Whatever’s announced today, I doubt very much will be the framework that’s in place in, say, nine months’ time because we know there’ll be negotiations around this,” Daiwa Capital economist Chris Scicluna said.

“It’s very difficult to predict with any confidence what the ultimate impact is going to be, whether broadly, economically, in terms of rates or in terms of stock markets,” he said.

“Investors are hoping for some clarity, and perhaps the start of the deal-making phase. But tariffs are already weighing on business sentiment, and this will probably feed through into lower global economic activity in the coming months,” said Ben Bennett, Asia-Pacific investment strategist at Legal & General Investment Management.

Source – Reuters

Gold has outperformed the U.S. dollar and the S&P 500 by more than 6% across the 11 days when tariffs announcements dominated the news this year, according to J.P. Morgan.

Source – Seeking Alpha

Gold is on a tear, hitting a record high in New York on Monday at almost $3,150 an ounce to bring the rise this year to 19%.

Analysts at Bank of America think gold could hit $3,500 an ounce if demand increases by 10%.

“Uncertainty around Trump Administration trade policies could continue to push the dollar lower, further supporting gold prices near-term. In our view, a broad rebalancing of America’s twin deficits could be bullish gold too.”

Source – Markets Insider