Gold, Analysts' and Managers' Estimates

Go for Gold. Go for gold. That is the title of Goldman Sachs' report on commodities. One could not be more explicit. On 2 September, the analysts of the well-known US investment bank indicated 2,700 dollars an ounce as the level that the yellow metal could touch at the beginning of 2025.

Acting as a flywheel is the Fed's imminent rate cut, now taken for granted after Wednesday's data on slowing US inflation. Then there is gold's protective function against possible geopolitical shocks, including tariffs: with Donald Trump's victory, in fact, the war on tariffs could start again and what safer haven is there than the gold metal?

Optimism, therefore, on gold, which is currently travelling above $2,500 an ounce: on Thursday in New York it broke through the $2,580 barrier, setting a new record. "Only strong macroeconomic data, particularly from the US, indicating significant growth or economic improvement, could stop its upward trend," said Kelvin Wong, market analyst at broker Oanda heard by Reuters. Finally, there are analysts at Bofa Global Research who in their commodities report of 5 September did not rule out the possibility that gold could touch $3,000 an ounce.

Precious metal scenarios, however, cannot ignore China. It was Beijing, with its central bank, that pushed the purchase accelerator. People's Bank of China has however stopped buying gold: in May, after 18 months of gold shopping, Beijing bankers said stop. The US rate cut, however, gives hope for the arrival of Western hands on the yellow metal: the West has been "a largely absent component in the strong rally in gold observed over the past two years," Goldman Sachs dixit.

However, the Chinese slowdown also affects industrial metals (see article on opposite page): copper, king of the energy transition, after reaching a high of USD 11,000 per tonne, has retraced to USD 9,000 precisely because of Beijing.