Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Amy Gower, Morgan Stanley’s Metals & Mining Commodity Strategist. Today I’m going to talk about the steady rise we’ve had in gold prices in recent months and whether or not this rally can continue.
It’s Tuesday, April 15th, at 2pm in London.
So gold breached $3000/oz for the first time ever on 17th of March this year, and has continued to rise since then; but we would argue it still has room to run.
First of all, let’s look back at how we got here. So, gold already rallied 25 percent in 2024, which was driven largely by strong central bank demand as well as the start of the US Fed rate cutting cycle, and strong demand for bars and coins as geopolitical risk remained elevated.
And arguably, these trends have continued in 2025, with gold up another 22 percent, and now rising tariff uncertainty also contributing. This comes in two ways – first, demand for gold as a safe haven asset against this current macro uncertainty. And second as an inflation hedge. Gold has historically been viewed by investors as a hedge against the impact of inflation. So, with the U.S. tariffs raising inflation risks, gold is seeing additional demand here too.
But, of course, the question is: can this gold rally keep going? We think the answer is yes, but would caveat that in big market moves -- like the ones we have seen in recent weeks -- gold can also initially fall alongside other asset classes, as it is often used to provide liquidity. But this is often short-lived and already gold has been rebounding. We would expect this to continue with the price of gold to rise further to around $3500/oz by the third quarter of this year.
There are three key drivers behind this projection:
First, we see still strong physical demand for gold, both from central banks and from the return of exchange-traded funds or ETFs. Central banks saw what looks like a structural shift in their gold purchases in 2022, which has continued now for three consecutive years. And ETF inflows are returning after four years of outflows, adding a significant amount year-to-date, but still well below their 2020 highs, suggesting there’s arguably much more room to go here.
Second, macro drivers are also contributing to this gold price outlook. A falling U.S. dollar is usually a tailwind for commodities in general, as it makes them cheaper for non-dollar holders; while a stagflation scenario, where growth expectations are skewed down and inflation risks are skewed up, would also be a set-up where gold would perform well.
And third, continued demand for gold as a safe-haven asset amid rising inflation and growth risks is also likely to keep that bar and coin segment well supported.
And what would be the bullish risks to this gold outlook? Well, as prices rise, you tend to start ask questions about demand destruction. And this is no different for gold, particularly in the jewelry segment where consumers would go with usually a budget in mind, rather than a quantity of gold. And so demand can be quite price sensitive. Annual jewelry demand is roughly twice the size of that central bank buying and we already saw this fall around 11 percent year-on-year in 2024. So, we would expect a bit of weakness here. But offset by the other factors that I mentioned.
So, all in all, a combination of physical buying, macro factors and uncertainty should be driving safe haven demand for gold, keeping prices on a rising trajectory from here.
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