Where Gold and Silver Go From Here, According to the People Paid to Forecast It

With gold under $3,900 an ounce on Friday morning and silver under $50, the obvious question is where the professionals think the metals go next. The honest answer is that the people paid to forecast them have spent 2026 cutting their near-term numbers while keeping their far-off ones, which tells you something about both the metals and the forecasters.

What follows is built only from forecasts that were published, dated and attributed. For each one we name the house, the date and the horizon. Where secondary write-ups disagreed about a bank's figure and we could not confirm it from the bank or a wire service, we say so.

Why did the banks cut their 2026 gold forecasts?

Because the Federal Reserve did not cut. In January, with gold racing toward its record, Goldman Sachs raised its end-2026 target to $5,400 from $4,900, Reuters reported on 22 January, on the assumption that private buyers would hold their gold and that the Fed would cut by 50 basis points this year. Spot gold peaked at $5,591.61 a week later, on 29 January. Instead of cutting, the Fed hiked in September and held at 3.75 to 4 percent on Wednesday with two dissents in favour of another hike.

Goldman's path since tells the story. It trimmed end-2026 to $4,900 in June as ETF inflows faded, then, in a note published after the September hike, cut its end-2026 fair value to $4,650 while reiterating $5,400 for end-2027, investingLive reported on 23 September. Analyst Lina Thomas framed tighter policy as changing the timing rather than the destination, with central bank buying of about 90 tonnes a month, against a pre-2022 average of 17 tonnes, doing most of the lifting. She also named a more hawkish Fed path than Goldman assumes as the key downside risk.

HSBC moved earlier. On 9 July it lowered its 2026 average forecast to $4,560 from $4,864 and its 2027 average to $4,925 from $5,000, citing the hawkish shift in US rate expectations and a stronger dollar, Reuters reported. It kept year-end targets of $4,750 for 2026 and $5,025 for 2027, and said gold could trade between $3,800 and $4,700 for the rest of this year. Chief precious metals analyst James Steel said he retained a positive posture, pointing to fiscal profligacy, notably in the US, and expecting official-sector buying of 680 tonnes in 2026 and 850 tonnes in 2027.

Bank of America cut its 2026 average forecast by 14 percent to $4,360 in the first week of July, a reduction Kitco attributed to a more hawkish Fed outlook, while its equity analysts still saw compelling value in miners with gold miner earnings yields at 12 percent, Kitco reported on 13 July. Citi cut its zero to three month target to $4,000 from $4,300 on 9 June and kept a six to twelve month target of $4,500, conditional on a dovish Fed pivot or more geopolitical turmoil, according to Kitco.

J.P. Morgan is the house where the record is muddiest. Its public research page, dated 9 June, carries $6,000 for the fourth quarter of 2026 and $6,300 for the fourth quarter of 2027, with a 2027 average of $6,263,. Several outlets reported on 3 and 4 July that the bank had cut its fourth-quarter 2026 figure to $4,500, with a third-quarter average of $4,300. We could not confirm the July figures on the bank's own page or from a wire service, so treat them as reported rather than verified.

What do the forecasters say about 2027?

Here the cuts largely stop. Goldman's $5,400 for end-2027 stands. HSBC's $5,025 year-end 2027 figure stands. UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo told Reuters on Friday, with gold under $4,000, that the metal "could climb to $5,000 or higher next year"; in the LBMA's January survey, UBS's Joni Teves had filed a 2026 gold average of $4,675 and a silver average of $78.80.