Wall Street keeps pushing up its already bullish calls on gold as the precious metal climbs to new highs.
Gold futures (GC=F) rose to $3,114 on Friday after hitting their 17th record of the year on Thursday. President Trump’s auto tariff announcement fueled trade war fears, while a weaker US dollar (DX-Y.NYB) also supported prices.
Earlier this week, analysts at Bank of America raised their price target on gold to $3,500 per ounce over the coming 18 months from $3,000 previously. The new target is based on the assumption that investments increase 10% through more buying from China and central banks and continued purchases of physically backed ETFs.
“Uncertainty around Trump administration trade policies could continue to push the USD lower, further supporting gold prices near-term. In our view, a broad rebalancing of America’s twin deficits could be bullish gold too,” wrote the analysts.
A “confluence of factors, mostly driven by the Trump administration’s economic policy mix, have pushed investors to increase their allocations to the yellow metal,” the analysts wrote.
BofA’s call follows a similar forecast from Macquarie Group, which recently predicted the precious metal will touch $3,500 in the third quarter of this year.
