Gold Price Up 10% Already in 2025. Is $3,000 Only the Beginning?Gold XAUUSD clocked a 27% rise in 2024 when a flurry of events aligned to position the safe-haven asset front and center for global traders. This year, the shiny stuff is already off the charts and into new horizons, nearing $3,000 per ounce.
Record after record, gold has defied all gloom-and-doom forecasters and permabears. But is that gold rush sustainable? Depends on who you ask. But the fundamentals are certainly there.
A surge in US shipments is driving the latest leg up in the price as gold traders and dealers scramble to import boatloads of it before Trump potentially slaps a tariff on the metal, which has historically been free from such tax charges.
A sweeping arbitrage trade is taking place between London and New York. The Americans are piling bullion bars on Comex, the New York commodity exchange while the Brits are seeing their gold reserves dry up, driving the cost of borrowing up by 10% or more (borrowers are usually commercial banks and gold-linked businesses).
What’s more, the waiting time to pull gold from the Bank of England has skyrocketed from mere days to between a month and two months.
The result of that arbitrage? Inventories in New York have soared roughly 100% since November’s Presidential election with stockpiles now sitting at more than $100 billion in value — that’s more than 1,000 tons. If it was easy to do it, then we could probably brush it off as pure speculation. But it’s a hassle.
Here’s how it works: The London gold is not acceptable in New York. To close a contract and stack up the glittery metal in the US, the heavy stuff that’s being transported on planes across the Atlantic needs to be in differently shaped bars.
Gold dealers need to first pass it through a refinery in Switzerland where it gets melted and reshaped into the shape Comex takes in New York. That’s how physical gold is different from pretty much any other physical asset like a stock certificate or a bond.
Apparently, the insane tariff drama that releases a new episode every day could easily drive the price of gold higher. And that’s what Wall Street thinks will happen. Goldman Sachs GS , the formidable investment banking giant that’s over 150 years old, said in a note that gold prices could top $3,000 this year. It almost happened already and we’re not even past February.
Gold hit a record high of $2,940 per ounce on Tuesday — cue the celebration among gold bugs.
Another big reason for gold to shine in 2025 is how central banks warmed up to it in 2024. Let’s roll back the tape a little bit — the World Gold Council estimates that central banks last year stacked up more than 800 tons of gold. The biggest buyer on that list is Poland with 80 tons of it. The next four — Turkey, India, Azerbaijan, China.
Digging a bit deeper, lower interest rates generally support the bullish narrative for gold, which is a non-yielding asset. Gold doesn’t generate passive income, it doesn’t pay dividends and doesn’t pay you any sort of return like a bond does.
When interest rates fall, the environment benefits gold because the opportunity cost of holding it is less and investors jump in more easily. This said, pay attention to the economic calendar for any hot data releases that may stir up gold markets.
With momentum being as strong as it is now, do you think gold has more room to the upside? Or are we now in froth land and prices could turn around? Share your thoughts on gold in the comments!
