LONDON, May 5, 2026, 15:04 (BST)
- Gold rebounded on Tuesday after a more than one-month low, keeping attention on whether January’s record highs marked a peak or a pause.
- The World Gold Council said first-quarter gold demand by value hit a record $193 billion, even as jewellery buying fell hard.
- Deutsche Bank’s $8,000 scenario is a model case, not an official forecast, but it has gained traction as central banks keep adding bullion.
Gold’s latest bounce has put a bigger question back in front of investors: whether the market is moving from a jewellery-led cycle to one driven by central banks, private investors and doubts about the dollar-based reserve system.
That is why this matters now. Gold is trading far below its January peak but still near levels that would have looked extreme a year ago, while new demand data show buyers of bars, coins and official reserves doing more of the work. WELT framed the move as a possible break in the global financial system that is showing up first in gold, not just another price swing.
Spot gold rose 1% to $4,566.79 an ounce at 1245 GMT on Tuesday after touching its lowest level since March 31 a day earlier. U.S. gold futures gained to $4,577.60. Jim Wyckoff, market analyst at American Gold Exchange, cited “bargain hunting” after the selloff, while City Index analyst Fawad Razaqzada said inflation hedging and central-bank buying had helped limit deeper losses. Silver, platinum and palladium also rose. Reuters
Gold.de’s live price page showed gold at $4,579.57 an ounce on May 5, up 1.26% on the day, but still below its listed intraday record of $5,594.70. The German metals site also said 2026 demand was being reshaped by investors piling into bars and coins while jewellery demand weakened.
The World Gold Council said total first-quarter demand, including OTC trades, or off-exchange transactions, rose 2% from a year earlier to 1,231 tonnes. The value of that demand jumped 74% to a record $193 billion. Bar and coin demand rose 42% to 474 tonnes, while gold-backed ETFs — funds that trade like shares and hold bullion — added 62 tonnes, though at a slower pace than a year earlier.
Louise Street, senior markets analyst at the World Gold Council, said “price momentum and heightened geopolitical risk” drove investment demand, especially in Asia. She also warned that higher-for-longer interest rates could become a headwind, particularly in Western markets. World Gold Council
The weak spot is jewellery. Global gold jewellery demand fell 23% year on year to just under 300 tonnes, its lowest quarter since the COVID period, although spending on jewellery rose 31% to $47 billion because prices were so high. China’s jewellery demand dropped 32%, India’s fell 19%, and some buyers appear to have shifted toward lower-premium bars and coins.
That shift is what gives the $8,000 debate its force. Focus, citing a Deutsche Bank analysis, said the bank modelled a case in which central banks push gold’s share of reserves back toward Cold War-era levels of about 40%. In that scenario, gold could reach $8,000 an ounce within five years, even if emerging-market foreign-exchange reserves shrink.
The same point was carried by Mining.com, which said Deutsche Bank described the $8,000 level as a conceptual scenario rather than an official price forecast. The bank’s argument rests on de-dollarisation: countries adding gold because bullion is not another government’s liability and is harder to block through sanctions.
Central banks are still buying, but not all in the same way. The World Gold Council said official-sector demand reached 244 tonnes in the first quarter, up 17% from the previous quarter. Poland bought 31 tonnes, Uzbekistan added 25 tonnes and China bought 7 tonnes, while Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan’s SOFAZ reported sales.
The competitive frame is no longer just gold versus jewellery or gold versus equities. The European Central Bank said gold became the second-largest global reserve asset at market prices in 2024, behind the U.S. dollar and ahead of the euro, after central banks bought more than 1,000 tonnes for the year.
But the trade can still go wrong. Gold pays no income, so higher bond yields and a stronger dollar can make it less attractive. A sharper fall in oil prices, calmer geopolitics or heavy official-sector selling could also pull money out of bullion. The recent ETF outflows from U.S. funds in March showed how fast positioning can reverse when investors need cash.
Supply is not opening up quickly enough to remove the pressure. The World Gold Council said total supply rose 2% in the first quarter to 1,231 tonnes, with mine output up 2% to a first-quarter record of 885 tonnes and recycling up 5%. That is growth, but not a flood.
For now, the near-term trade turns on U.S. labour data, interest-rate expectations and Middle East risk. The larger story is slower: whether central-bank buying stays a strategic reserve move rather than a crisis trade. If it does, the gold market’s floor may be harder to judge than its ceiling.
