If all the most accurate historical gold predictors are combined, can they crack the future gold price?

One single thing about gold completely stripped the illusion from so-called financial experts.

Written by: Jiayi

If I could find, over all the years, the people who predicted a financial product—like gold—most accurately, the most authoritative institutions, and the most famous analysts, compare every one of their predictions with the actual results, and figure out “who was the most accurate”… then look at how these “most accurate people” view the future now?

Wouldn’t that mean I’ve basically grasped the wealth password for this financial asset?

With that thought, I really went and did it. Using gold as the sample, I dug through over a decade of prediction records.

For this research, we pulled out three categories of people: the top-tier investment banks and industry institutions on Wall Street, the loudest big Vs in the gold space, and the “chosen ones” who accurately prophesied key reversals.

We went through the data one by one.

All the prediction data we found—laid out in full

Wall Street professional institutions:

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

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

That means the most bullish analyst in the entire market, and the one who ultimately won, still had a prediction value 15% lower than the actual. And market consensus was even off—undervaluing it by a full 20%.

• Goldman Sachs has two major, standout entries in the history of gold forecasts. In April 2013, Goldman issued a report explicitly recommending shorting gold, targeting $1,450. Gold then crashed by 26%, and Goldman became a legend.

But more recently, Goldman crashed. In October 2024, Goldman predicted a 2025 gold price of $2,700. The reality? Gold rocketed throughout 2025, 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 big V:

• Peter Schiff, the most famous “always bullish” figure in the gold circle. More than ten years ago, he was already calling for “$5,000 gold.” From 2013 to 2018, gold moved sideways for five or six years—he kept getting mocked and ridiculed as a “stopped clock.” But in early 2026, gold did break above $5,000. Latest remarks (March 23): he called the recent pullback “illogical” and predicted gold would surge to $11,400 within three years.
• Jim Rickards, another long-time big V who insists on “$10,000 gold.” The core logic is that the de-dollarization of BRICS will force the global monetary system to be reset. The direction was right, but the timeline kept getting pushed back, and the target price still hasn’t been achieved.
• Robert Kiyosaki (author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad”), mid-March predicted that after the upcoming “biggest bubble burst in history,” gold would reach $35,000.

“Chosen ones” who accurately predicted reversals:

• Nouriel Roubini (“Dr. Doom”), made himself legendary for predicting the 2008 financial crisis. In gold, he made two great calls: in June 2013, when the gold price was around $1,400, he wrote that “the gold bubble is breaking,” targeting $1,000. By the end of 2015, gold hit a low around $1,050, perfectly validating it. In January 2023, when gold hovered around $1,900, he went long, predicting that each year within five years it would rise by 10%, targeting $3,000. Gold later far exceeded that number.
• Ben McMillan (IDX Advisors Chief Investment Officer), stood out in the recent market action. In early 2024, when gold was around $2,000, he predicted it would reach $5,000 within five years. The market at the time thought it was “nearly crazy.” The result: gold only took a year and a half to get there.
• Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater), doesn’t give a specific price—he categorizes the situation from a macro-cycle perspective. In January 2026, he called gold the “second-largest currency” and suggested allocating 5-15% to it in a portfolio.

After seeing the data, you might think—some people are pretty accurate, right?

Not so fast. What I shared above were just the few times they’re “most famous.” When I pull out their full records and look, the picture changes.

Wall Street professional institutions: typical lagging forecasts

What is a lagging forecast? It’s when a bull market has already arrived, and only then do they start raising targets; but the amount they raise never keeps up with the actual magnitude of the rally. When a bear market comes, they start cutting again—but they’re always too slow.

The LBMA’s 28 analysts are the best example. They make one forecast each year, and in essence it’s a small extrapolation of a trend that has already happened. In 2024, gold had already risen to $2,700; in their 2025 forecast, the median estimate was only $2,735—basically copying last year’s closing price forward as the forecast. The result: the 2025 average price was $3,431, a 20% slap in the face.

Goldman is the same pattern. At the end of 2024, they looked at 2025 and offered only $2,700—then gold later surged past $5,000. JPMorgan gave a $5,055 benchmark, and gold broke through that level early.

What these institutions are doing—more accurately—can be called “trend confirmation”: telling you that something that’s already happening really is happening, but their judgment on the magnitude is always conservative. If you wait for their signals to make decisions, you’ll always be one step behind.

Big V on the track: a broken clock is right twice a day

Peter Schiff has been calling for $5,000 gold for more than ten years. Jim Rickards has kept calling for $10,000. Kiyosaki went straight for $35,000.

The essence of their strategy iscalling for higher prices every year—when it rises, it’s “I said so all along,” and when it falls, it’s “it’s not time yet.”

The more lethal problem is: these predictions have no time granularity. They don’t tell you when to enter or when you should get out. If you went all-in on gold in 2011 based on Schiff’s advice, you’d have to endure five or six years of sideways action and losses before waiting for today. When you’re down 40%, “faith” doesn’t come with a stop-the-bleeding function.

Chosen ones: are they really always right?

This type of person is the most confusing. Because they really have, at some key moments, made astonishingly precise judgments—so the market gave them the halo of a “prophet.” But when I pull their full records and look at them, the picture isn’t that perfect.

Roubini got the bearish call right in 2013, and the bullish reversal right in 2023. He caught both turning points—yes, that’s impressive.

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

During the entire 2009-2012 gold bull market, Roubini kept singing bearish, and he completely missed it. Nobody talks about this history; people only remember his 2013 bearish call and his 2023 bullish reversal.

Ben McMillan predicted $5,000 within five years in early 2024, and it arrived in a year and a half. The logic was built on structural changes in central bank gold purchases, and yes, it was right. But the issue is: this is the only widely recorded prediction of his in the gold space. The sample size is just one. Can being right once prove systematic predictive ability?

Ray Dalio sounds the most steady—he doesn’t forecast prices, just gives allocation advice. But when you look at his macro prediction record: in 1981, he firmly believed the U.S. would experience a Great Depression, shouting it everywhere—in newspapers, on TV, and during Congressional hearings. The result was completely wrong; Bridgewater almost went under and even had to borrow $4,000 from his father to pay the family bills. In 2015 he said it would “replay 1937”—it didn’t happen. In 2018 he said “a recession within two years”—it didn’t happen. In October 2022 he called a “perfect storm”—that month happened to be the bottom of the U.S. stock market.

Predicted financial crises about once every couple of years, but most of them didn’t occur. But ironically, his line—“You don’t need to predict prices; you only need to allocate 5-15%”—turned out to be the most useful sentence among everyone.

The script in 2011, being replayed in 2026

In the report, there’s one particularly interesting discovery.

Before gold peaked at $1,923 in 2011, market forecasts were being wildly and stepwise amplified: at the beginning of the year, people predicted $2,000; by mid-year it doubled; near the top, Jim Sinclair was calling for $12,500, and Rob Kirby for $15,000. The most extreme predictions appeared only a few weeks before the real peak.

Then in September, gold crashed. What was the reaction from the predictors? First they said it was a “healthy correction,” and then only after a few months, reluctantly, did they cut their targets by 20-30%, and finally they pushed the timetable back indefinitely.

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

History won’t repeat exactly, but the script really does look similar.

So how are they looking at the future now?

Since we’ve pulled all of it apart, we’ve also listed their latest views for your reference:

Person / Institution Latest prediction Core logic Roubini Previously targeted $3,000 achieved; bullish stance unchanged Inflation expectations returning + long-term structural uptrend McMillan $10,000 within five years Central bank gold buying + Treasury bond crisis + BRICS de-dollarization Dalio Doesn’t give a price; suggests allocating 5-15% Decline in statutory currency credit structure Jamie Dimon Could touch $10,000 within this year Economic concerns + inflation + asset bubbles Peter Schiff $11,400 within three years Says the recent drop is “illogical” Kiyosaki $35,000 After the “biggest bubble burst in history” JPMorgan $6,300 Thinks the selloff is profit-taking UBS $6,200 Maintains bullish view

Have you seen it? From $5,400 to $35,000, the spread between the highest and lowest is nearly 7x. Same market environment, same data sources—these world-class minds can produce answers that differ by this much.

So, did we find the “wealth password”?

After finishing all the work of sorting everything out, my conclusion is: I didn’t find it.

Institutions are always chasing, big Vs are always shouting, and the chosen ones aren’t always right either—they’re only right at certain specific moments, and when they’re wrong, nobody remembers. When you stack the predictions of these three categories on top of each other, you don’t get a more accurate answer—you get even more confusion. Because at the same time points, they often contradict each other.

I used to think that “finding the most accurate person and following them” was a path to take. After doing this research, I found that in the gold prediction space, there simply isn’t any “always most accurate” person. There are only people who just happened to be right this time.

Written at the end

One single thing about gold completely stripped the illusion from so-called financial experts

Whether ALPHA can be caught by you—besides models and data—may really depend on luck and fate.

So, in the end, rather than trying to crack the wealth password, I decided to learn from Dalio instead: don’t forecast specific prices, admit uncertainty, and manage risk through allocation.

Gold has been added to the portfolio last year, and this year it will keep being added. The personal investment time horizon is calculated on a 10-year cycle.