JPMorgan Gold Forecast 2026: $6,300 Target Despite Pullback

Gold—The Hypothetical Becomes Real

Progress towards $6,000/oz medium-term target continues to come quicker than expected. Back in May 2025, when gold was still "just" around $3,300/oz, we first laid out a hypothetical framework for how just an additional $17 billion of additional notional gold demand a quarter over a four year period would be enough new demand to drive prices to $6,000/oz.

In actuality, with the price of gold breaking above $5,000/oz earlier last week (albeit temporarily for now), progress towards this medium-term target continues to come much sooner than our initial assumptions as gold's long-term rally continues its torrid pace, taking only 110 days (~3.5 months) to rise another $1,000/oz (25%) to first eclipse $5,000/oz.

The much quicker progress towards this $6,000/oz medium-term target comes as investor and central bank demand continues to remain exceptionally robust. Over 2H25, demand from investors and central banks came in at 944 tonnes and 757 tonnes in 3Q25 and 4Q25, respectively, or between 150-250 tonnes higher year on year.

"This long-term rally in gold has not and will not be linear, so for now we once again digest, reset and repeat."

Central Bank Demand Remains Strong

Even at prices pushing above $4,000/oz in 4Q25, central banks purchased 230 tonnes of gold to cap off 863 tonnes of buying in full year 2025. On central banks, we now expect 800 tonnes of buying in 2026 as we still see a path for continued elevated purchases amid an unexhausted trend of reserve diversification.

We also remain encouraged by recent purchases from Brazil in late 2025, the first since 2021, with the central bank adding 43 tonnes over September through November. Moreover, Poland, which purchased around 100 tonnes in 2025 is now targeting 700 tonnes of total gold reserves, about 150 tonnes higher than current holdings.

Investor Diversification Continues

On the investor side, gold continues to be viewed as a dynamic, multi-faceted portfolio hedge, stoking increasing diversification into the metal. The list of concerns driving investors into gold is diverse, spanning U.S. debt sustainability, US dollar weakness, inflation and real asset diversification, relatively stretched equity valuations, a still-fraught geopolitical landscape, Fed independence, and general US trade and policy uncertainty.

Ultimately, we still see gold ownership as a share of total private investment on a path towards 5% over the medium term. Within this, we now expect another 580 tonne (14%) boost to ETF holdings this year with physical bar and coin demand continuing to grow by around 1% in 2026.

How High Is Too High for Gold?

One question we have increasingly been getting from investors (particularly as we ran up to $5,500/oz) is how high is too high for gold prices? Our broader, medium-term framework on gold is rooted in tonnes of demand. With gold's inelastic supply in the short-term, jumps in demand push prices higher in an attempt to eventually restore market equilibrium.

We base our price forecasts on a regression between quarterly tonnes of gold demand from investors and central banks (what we view as the price-setting segments of gold demand) and the quarterly change in gold prices. This shows that more than 380 tonnes of quarterly gold demand from these sources is needed for gold prices to increase that quarter.

Overall, while this is only one limited heuristic, we think it goes to show that while the air is getting thinner the higher we go in gold prices, we are not yet close to a place where the structural rally in gold is at risk of collapsing under its own weight.

Silver—Risk of Overcorrection Runs Both Ways

Silver's roll-over was even more spectacular than gold, with prices falling by more than 26% on Friday to swiftly rebase silver from intra-week highs ~$120/oz to back around $85/oz. With silver ETF holdings continuing to draw in the last couple of weeks, COMEX withdrawals continuing, and the front of the London OTC forward curve remaining in a much looser contango, we had been cautioning that since about $80/oz and late December, the drivers of the continued push higher had become harder to exactly pinpoint.

Chinese and Indian Demand Critical

The most influential catalyst supporting silver's more recent extension has been stronger Chinese and Indian demand. In China, amid a broader investment surge into metals, SGE price gains outpaced gains in spot London silver prices throughout January to trade at a premium. India's 2026-27 budget was announced on Sunday, keeping customs duty rates for gold and silver unchanged at the current rate of 6%.

Fundamental S&D Consequences Ahead

Looking beyond the near-term, we now see higher silver prices likely translating into fundamental S&D consequences for silver beginning this year. High silver input costs, accounting for 30%+ of solar panel selling prices, are a serious threat to increased substitution and thrifting in solar demand with Longi and others announcing a shift into copper.

We now see the potential for solar demand for silver to fall by around 30% this year, a ~60 mln oz reduction yoy. On the supply side, we have also boosted our recycling assumptions this year to +14% yoy. We now see the silver market (ex inventory or ETF flows) moving into balance this year and a modest surplus next year.

Technical Analysis

The late-January acceleration to higher gold prices pushed short-term momentum measures to levels rarely seen. At Thursday's price high, indicators that track two-week momentum saw levels last realized in the late-1970s/early-1980s. While these extremes raise the prospect for a period of near-term consolidation, we do not see any price patterns in place that would suggest the market is setting up for a lasting bearish trend reversal.

For now, we will focus on tactical support at the 4942 October 38.2% retracement, then the critical zone on the spot gold chart near 4600. That area includes the 4600-4642 gap and the point of bullish reacceleration, which in our experience has a tendency to act as a fulcrum point for future price action.

Key Support Levels

1. 4942: October 38.2% retracement level—first tactical support
2. 4600-4642: Critical support zone including gap and point of bullish reacceleration
3. 4539: October 61.8% retracement, plus rising 200-day moving average and Nov-Dec trend line

Prior near-term setbacks since the medium-term advance started in 2022 have been in the 9-15% range on both the spot and futures charts. A pullback of that magnitude would put the market on top of key levels that sit near 4600. We view that area as key support and believe the longer-term rally momentum will remain intact provided the market holds above that area.

"Beyond the lack of clear technical signals that would suggest gold is in the terminal phase of its advance, relative market performance suggests markets are still within a well-entrenched regime of hard asset outperformance over paper assets."

The S&P 500 Index / Gold ratio peaked in late-2021 and saw a sequence of pattern breakdowns that started in early-2024. Most recently, that ratio cascaded through a critical longer-term range support near 1.5. The amplitude of relative equity weakness now has the ratio trending toward performance realized over similar regimes over the 1930s, 1970s, and 2000s—each of those regimes lasted a full decade.

Investment Conclusion

We remain firmly bullishly convicted in gold over the medium-term on the back of a clean, structural, continued diversification trend that has further to run amid a still well-entrenched regime of real asset outperformance vs paper assets.

Our demand assumptions aggregate to 717 tonnes of average quarterly investor and central bank demand in 2026, a step lower than the 750 tonne average in 2025, but still materially higher than the 380 tonnes we see as needed for gold prices to continue rallying. We now forecast gold prices pushing higher towards a year-end 2026 target of $6,300/oz and on towards $6,600/oz over the course of 2027.

For silver, we see a higher floor on average around $75-80/oz for now, as even after overshooting in its catch up to gold, silver is unlikely to fully relinquish its recent gains. However, we remain more cautious on re-engaging in silver in the near-term until it becomes clearer that some of the recent froth in prices has been fully shaken out.

We continue to view pullbacks as healthy and necessary, not a challenge to our structural bullish view, and expect central bank dip buying to ultimately allow investor positioning to be digested and a cleaner market to develop again to continue the bullish ratchet higher.