Investing.com — Goldman Sachs is maintaining its bullish outlook on , reiterating a year-end price target of $5,400 per troy ounce, as the Wall Street firm raised its estimate of central bank gold buying and expects purchases to accelerate through the rest of 2026.
The bank updated its proprietary nowcast of central bank gold demand after finding it had been systematically underestimating purchases since August 2025. The revised 12-month moving average nowcast now stands at 50 tonnes per month as of March, up sharply from 29 tonnes per month under the previous model.
The updated figures imply central banks bought 66 tonnes in January alone, compared with just 12 tonnes in the prior estimate.
The revision comes amid a growing gap between gold leaving London vaults and what U.K. trade data were capturing. While London vault outflows had been rising, U.K. export statistics were no longer fully reflecting those movements, suggesting that a portion of sovereign gold transactions had stopped being recorded.
“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 ahead, Goldman expects central bank purchases to average 60 tonnes per month through 2026. The bank cited results from its own central bank survey showing “strong underlying interest in gold,” and said recent geopolitical developments “are likely to reinforce diversification over time — both for central banks and private investors.”
That said, the strategists are more cautious in the near term. “Gold’s high liquidity makes it a natural source of cash if private investors face liquidity needs,” they wrote, flagging a risk of a selloff if equity markets come under pressure from higher rates or weaker growth expectations tied to geopolitical uncertainty.
The mechanics of Goldman’s nowcast rely on U.K. customs data, since London’s over-the-counter market is where most sovereign gold transactions take place. Because the U.K. has no meaningful domestic gold production, all gold traded there must be imported and then either stored in London vaults or exported, making trade flow data a useful proxy for tracking where gold ultimately ends up.