If all the most accurate gold predictors in history were combined, could they crack the future gold price? I have been analyzing and organizing the most accurate gold forecasts for ten years.

Written by: JiaYi

If I could find—throughout history—the person who has predicted a financial product—like gold—with the highest accuracy, the most authoritative institutions, and the most famous analysts, then compare every one of their predictions with the actual outcomes, figure out “who is the most accurate”… and then see how these “most accurate people” are looking at the future now—

Does that mean I would have the wealth password for this financial asset?

With that idea in mind, I really did it. Using gold as the sample, I dug through over a decade’s worth of forecasting records.

For this study, we pulled out three categories of people: the very top investment banks and industry institutions on Wall Street, the biggest influencers in the gold space, and the “chosen ones” who accurately predicted key reversals.

We look at the data one by one.

We lay out all the prediction data we found

Wall Street professional institutions:

LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) Each year invites dozens of top analysts to make annual forecasts for gold. In 2025, the average forecast from 28 analysts was $2,735 per ounce. The most optimistic analyst that year—Keisuke (Bill) Okui from Sumitomo Corporation—gave $2,925, because “being closest to reality” earned him the year’s “most accurate prediction award.”

What was the actual average gold price in 2025? $3,431.

That means the most bullish analyst in the whole market—and the one who won—still had a forecast value 15% lower than the actual. Market consensus was even more underestimating it, by a full 20%.

Goldman Sachs has two standout records in the history of gold forecasts. In April 2013, Goldman issued a report clearly recommending shorting gold, with a target of $1,450. Gold then crashed 26%, and Goldman was crowned a “chosen one.”

But in recent times, Goldman hit a wall. In October 2024, Goldman predicted the 2025 gold price would be $2,700. What actually happened? In 2025, gold prices surged nonstop, breaking above $5,600 in early 2026. It was off by double.

JPMorgan gave a 2026 gold price benchmark of $5,055 at the end of 2025. The gold price broke above that level early.

Gold bull influencers:

Peter Schiff, the most famous “always bullish” player in the gold circle. More than ten years ago, he was already calling for “gold at $5,000.” From 2013 to 2018, gold traded sideways for five or six years—he got scolded every day and mocked as a “stopped clock.” But in early 2026, gold did break above $5,600. After calling it for more than a decade, he finally got it right.

Jim Rogers, a legendary investor in commodity markets. In the early 2010s, he predicted gold would rise to above $2,000—at the time, it was considered outrageous. Now it looks like his direction was correct, but the timing was off by 10 years.

Mike Maloney, creator of the “The Hidden History of Money” series, a deep gold bull. For a long time he predicted that gold was seriously undervalued and would eventually return to its true historical value as real money. Between 2015 and 2020, his forecasts were repeatedly validated by the market as overly optimistic. After gold began rallying post-2020, he started being seen as “finally right.”

Chosen ones:

Nouriel Roubini (“Dr. Doom”). His most famous claim was accurately predicting the financial crisis in 2008. On the gold front: in 2013, when the gold price fell from $1,900, he said within the $1,500–$1,600 range to “continue to look bearish.” The gold price truly broke through the $1,200 low point, perfectly validating him. In January 2023, with gold hovering around $1,900, he flipped long, forecasting 10% annual increases each year over the following five years, with a target of $3,000. Gold later far exceeded that figure.

Ben McMillan (Chief Investment Officer of IDX Advisors), who has stood out in the recent market cycle. In early 2024, when gold was around $2,000, he predicted it would reach $5,000 within five years. At the time, the market thought it was “near-crazy.” As it turned out, gold reached it in just a year and a half.

Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Fund). He doesn’t give specific prices; instead, he qualitatively judges from a macro cycle perspective. In January 2026, he called gold the “second most important currency,” and suggested allocating 5–15% in a portfolio.

After looking at the data, you might think—some people really are pretty accurate?

Don’t rush. What you’ve seen above is only the “most famous few times” for them. When I pulled their full records and looked, the picture was different.

Wall Street professional institutions: typical lagging predictions

What is a lagging prediction? It means that when a bull market has already arrived, they only start raising their target prices; but the magnitude of the increase is always unable to keep up with the actual rally. When a bear market comes, they start cutting too—yet they always cut too slowly.

The 28 analysts from LBMA are the best example. They make forecasts once a year. In essence, they are making small extrapolations of “a trend that has already happened.” In 2024, gold had already risen to $2,700, yet in their 2025 forecast, the median estimate was only $2,735—almost like copying last year’s closing price straight into the forecast. The result: the 2025 average price was $3,431, a 20% slap in the face.

Goldman Sachs follows the same pattern. At the end of 2024, looking at 2025, they only gave $2,700; gold later surged past $5,000. JPMorgan gave a $5,055 benchmark, and gold broke above it ahead of schedule.

What these institutions are doing—more precisely—can be called **“trend confirmation”**: telling you that what has already happened is indeed happening, but the assessment of the magnitude will always be conservative. If you wait for their signals to make decisions, you’ll always be one step late.

Marketplace influencers: a broken clock can still be right twice a day

Peter Schiff has been calling for $5,000 gold for over a decade. Jim Rickards has been calling for $10,000. Kiyosaki directly calls for $35,000.

Their strategy is essentially calling for higher every year—when it rises, it becomes “I said so all along”; when it falls, it becomes “it’s not time yet.”

The more fatal problem is: these predictions don’t have time granularity. They don’t tell you when to enter or when you should run. If you went all-in on gold in 2011 based on Schiff’s words, you’d have to endure five or six years of sideways action and losses just to wait for today. With faith like that, when you’re down 40%, it has no bleeding-stopping function.

Chosen ones: are they really always right?

This type of people is the most misleading. Because they really have made astonishingly accurate judgments at certain critical moments, the market grants them the halo of “prophet.” But when I put their full records side by side, the picture isn’t that perfect.

Roubini got bearish right in 2013, and flipped bullish correctly in 2023. He caught both turning points—he is indeed impressive.

But do you know what he missed in between? In 2009, when the gold price had just broken above $1,000, Roubini publicly said it was “impossible for it to rise another 20–30%.” The result? Gold kept rising to $1,900 in 2011—up nearly 90%. By late 2009, when gold was at $1,200, he said again that it “looks very much like a bubble” and “gold has no intrinsic value.”

During the entire gold bull market from 2009 to 2012, Roubini kept repeating bearish calls and completely missed it. This history isn’t mentioned by anyone—people only remember his pretty bearish call in 2013 and his bullish flip in 2023.

Ben McMillan predicted in early 2024 that gold would reach $5,000 within five years, and it happened in just a year and a half. The logic was built on structural changes in central bank gold buying, and it was indeed right. But the problem is: this is the only time in the gold space that he has been widely recorded. The sample size is one—one time being right can it explain systematic forecasting ability?

Ray Dalio sounds the most solid. He doesn’t predict prices—he only offers allocation advice. But when you look at his macro prediction record: In 1981, he was convinced the United States would face a Great Depression; he shouted about it everywhere—in newspapers, on TV, and in congressional hearings—yet it was a huge mistake. Bridgewater was close to collapsing and he even had to borrow $4,000 from his father to pay the household bills. In 2015, he said “we need to repeat 1937”—it didn’t happen. In 2018, he said “a recession within two years”—it didn’t happen. In October 2022, he called it a “perfect storm”—that month happened to be the bottom of the US stock market.

He predicts financial crises almost every two or three years, and the vast majority don’t occur. But ironically, his line—“you don’t need to predict prices, you just need to allocate 5–15%”—ends up being the most useful sentence among everyone.

The script in 2011 is being reenacted in 2026

The report contains a particularly interesting finding.

Before the 2011 gold price topped out at $1,923, market forecasts were crazily escalated in stepwise fashion: at the start of the year, everyone predicted $2,000; by mid-year, they doubled it; near the top, Jim Sinclair called $12,500 and Rob Kirby called $15,000. The most extreme predictions appeared just weeks before the actual top.

Then in September, gold crashed. What was the reaction of the forecasters? First they said it was a “healthy correction,” then only after a few months—reluctantly—they cut target prices by 20–30%, and finally they kept pushing the timetable indefinitely.

In March 2026, gold fell 25% from the $5,600 historical high to around $4,200—its biggest weekly drop since 1983. What was the reaction from most institutions and celebrities? They maintained the original extremely high target prices, and some even believed the crash was “the best buying opportunity.”

History won’t simply repeat itself, but the script really looks similar.

So how do they look at the future now?

Since we’ve already dug through everything, let’s also list their latest judgments for everyone’s reference:

Person/Institution Latest prediction Core logic Roubini Previous target of $3,000 has been achieved; the bullish direction is unchanged Inflation expectations reverting + long-term structural uptrend McMillan $10,000 within five years Central bank gold purchases + US Treasury crisis + BRICS de-dollarization Dalio Doesn’t give a price; suggests allocating 5–15% Declining structural credit of fiat currency Jamie Dimon Could touch $10,000 within this year Economic worries + inflation + asset bubble Peter Schiff $11,400 within three years Calls the recent drop “illogical” Kiyosaki $35,000 “after the biggest bubble in history bursts” JPMorgan $6,300 Thinks the drop is profit-taking Goldman Sachs $5,400 Bull market isn’t over UBS $6,200 Maintains bullish view

See it? From $5,400 to $35,000, the gap between the highest and lowest is nearly 7 times. Same market environment, same data sources—yet the answers from the world’s top minds differ so much.

So, did we find the “wealth password”?

After completing all my整理 and analysis, my conclusion is: I didn’t find it.

Institutions always chase, influencers always call, and even the chosen ones aren’t always right— they’re only right at certain specific moments, while the times they’re wrong go unnoticed. If you stack the predictions of these three categories together, not only do you not get a more accurate answer—you get something even more chaotic. Because at the same time points, they often contradict each other.

At first, I thought “find the most accurate person, follow them” was one path. After finishing this research, I found that in the gold forecasting space, there is basically no “person who’s always the most accurate.” What exists is only “the person who happened to be right this time.”

Written at the end

With just gold, I completely demystified the so-called financial experts

Whether you can catch ALPHA—besides models and data—may really also depend on fate.

So, in the end, rather than trying to crack the wealth password, I decide instead to learn from Dalio—don’t predict specific prices, admit uncertainty, and manage risk with allocation.

Gold was added to the position last year, and this year it will continue being added. For the personal investment time dimension, I calculate it on a 10-year cycle.