If we gather all the people who have made the most accurate predictions about gold in history, can we decipher future gold prices? I have spent ten years compiling the most accurate analyses of gold

If I gather the most accurate predictors, the most authoritative institutions, and the most famous analysts for a financial product—like gold—and compare their predictions with actual results to find out "who is the most accurate"… then look at how these "most accurate people" view the future now—

Have I then grasped the wealth code of this financial asset?

With this thought in mind, I really went ahead and did it. Using gold as a sample, I dug into over a decade of prediction records.

For this research, we highlighted three types of people: the top investment banks and industry institutions on Wall Street, the loudest influencers in the gold sector, and the "legendary predictors" who accurately forecasted key reversals.

We examined the data one by one.

The prediction data we found is all laid out

Wall Street Professional Institutions:

• LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) invites dozens of top analysts each year to make annual predictions on gold. For 2025, the average prediction from 28 analysts is $2,735/ounce. The most optimistic analyst that year—Keisuke (Bill) Okui from Sumitomo Corporation—predicted $2,925 and won the "Most Accurate Prediction Award" for being "closest to reality."

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

This means that even the most bullish analyst in the market, who ultimately won an award, had a prediction that was still 15% lower than the actual price. The market consensus underestimated it by a full 20%.

• Goldman Sachs has two notable records in the history of gold predictions. In April 2013, Goldman released a report clearly recommending shorting gold with a target of $1,450. Gold then plummeted 26%, and Goldman became legendary.

However, recently, Goldman stumbled. In October 2024, Goldman predicted a gold price of $2,700 for 2025. What happened? The gold price skyrocketed, surpassing $5,600 in early 2026. It was off by a factor of two.

• JPMorgan set a benchmark of $5,055 for the gold price at the end of 2025. As a result, the gold price broke through this level ahead of schedule.

Gold Influencers:

• Peter Schiff, the most famous "perpetual bull" in the gold circle, has been calling for "$5,000 gold" for over a decade. From 2013 to 2018, when gold prices stagnated for five to six years, he was ridiculed and called a "broken clock." But the gold price did indeed break through $5,600 in early 2026. After shouting for over a decade, he was finally right.
• Jim Rogers, a legendary investor in the commodities market, predicted in the early 2010s that gold would rise above $2,000, which was considered absurd at the time. In hindsight, he was correct in direction but off by ten years in timing.
• Mike Maloney, creator of the "History of Money" video series, is a deep gold bull. He has long predicted that gold is severely undervalued and will eventually return to its historical true monetary value. Between 2015 and 2020, his predictions were consistently validated by the market as overly optimistic. After 2020, as gold prices started to rise, he began to be seen as "finally right."

Legendary Predictors:

• Nouriel Roubini (Dr. Doom), best known for accurately predicting the financial crisis in 2008. Regarding gold: in 2013, when gold prices fell from $1,900, he said to "continue to be bearish" in the $1,500-$1,600 range, and gold indeed dropped below the $1,200 low, perfectly confirming his prediction. In January 2023, when gold hovered around $1,900, he turned bullish, predicting a 10% annual increase over five years, targeting $3,000. The gold price later far exceeded this figure.
• Ben McMillan (Chief Investment Officer of IDX Advisors) stood out in the recent market. In early 2024, with gold around $2,000, he predicted it would reach $5,000 within five years. The market at the time thought it was "almost crazy." As a result, gold reached that price in just a year and a half.
• Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Associates) does not provide specific prices but qualitatively assesses from a macro cycle perspective. In January 2026, he referred to gold as "the second-largest currency" and recommended a portfolio allocation of 5-15%.

After reviewing the data, you might think—some people are quite accurate?

Not so fast. The above are just their "most famous instances." When I pulled out their complete records, the picture changed.

Wall Street Professional Institutions: Typical Lagging Predictions

What is a lagging prediction? It means that when a bull market has already arrived, they start to raise their target prices; however, the adjustments never keep pace with the actual price increases. When a bear market arrives, they begin to lower their targets, but always too slowly.

The 28 analysts from LBMA are the best example. They make predictions once a year, essentially making small extrapolations on "trends that have already occurred." When the gold price had already risen to $2,700 in 2024, their median prediction for 2025 was only $2,735—essentially just carrying over last year's closing price as a prediction. The result? The average price in 2025 was $3,431, a 20% miss.

Goldman Sachs follows the same pattern. At the end of 2024, they only predicted $2,700 for 2025, and the gold price later surged past $5,000. JPMorgan's benchmark of $5,055 was also surpassed ahead of schedule.

What these institutions are doing is more accurately described as "trend confirmation"—telling you that what has already happened is indeed happening, but their judgments on the magnitude are always conservative. If you wait for their signals to make decisions, you will always be a step behind.

Influential Figures: A Broken Clock Can 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 to call for a rise every year; if it rises, it's "I said so long ago," and if it falls, it's "not the right time yet."

A more fatal problem is: these predictions lack temporal granularity. They do not tell you when to enter or when to exit. If you had listened to Schiff in 2011 and went all in on gold, you would have had to endure five to six years of stagnation and losses to wait until today. Belief in this kind of thing has no stopping power when you are down 40%.

Legendary Predictors: Are They Always Accurate?

This group is the most misleading. Because they have indeed made astonishingly accurate judgments at certain key moments, the market has given them the aura of "prophets." But when I pulled out their complete records, the picture is not so perfect.

Roubini was right to be bearish in 2013 and right to turn bullish in 2023. He indeed caught both turning points, which is impressive.

But do you know what he missed in between? When gold prices just broke $1,000 in 2009, Roubini publicly stated, "It is impossible to rise another 20-30%." What happened? Gold prices soared to $1,900 by 2011, an increase of nearly 90%. By the end of 2009, when gold reached $1,200, he again said, "It looks very much like a bubble," and "gold has no intrinsic value."

Throughout the entire gold bull market from 2009 to 2012, Roubini repeatedly called for bearishness and completely missed out. This part of history is rarely mentioned; everyone only remembers his impressive bearish call in 2013 and his bullish turn in 2023.

Ben McMillan predicted $5,000 within five years in early 2024, and it was reached in a year and a half. The logic was based on structural changes in central bank gold purchases, which was indeed correct. But the problem is: this is the only widely recorded prediction he has made in the gold field. The sample size is just one. Can one correct prediction indicate systemic predictive ability?

Ray Dalio sounds the most stable—he does not predict prices but only gives allocation advice. But if you look at his macro prediction record: in 1981, he firmly believed the U.S. was heading for a Great Depression, shouting everywhere in newspapers, on television, and at congressional hearings, only to be completely wrong, nearly causing Bridgewater to go bankrupt, forcing him to borrow $4,000 from his father to pay family bills. In 2015, he said, "We are going to repeat 1937," which did not happen. In 2018, he said, "A recession within two years," which also did not happen. In October 2022, he shouted "perfect storm"—that month happened to be the bottom of the U.S. stock market.

Almost every two to three years, he predicts a financial crisis, and the vast majority do not occur. Ironically, his statement, "You don't need to predict prices, just allocate 5-15%," has become the most useful advice among everyone.

The script from 2011 is being replayed in 2026

There is a particularly interesting finding in the report.

Before gold prices peaked at $1,923 in 2011, market predictions escalated wildly: at the beginning of the year, everyone predicted $2,000, doubling by mid-year, and near the peak, Jim Sinclair called for $12,500, and Rob Kirby called for $15,000. The most extreme predictions appeared just weeks before the actual peak.

Then in September, gold prices plummeted. What was the reaction of the predictors? First, they said "healthy correction," then reluctantly lowered their target prices by 20-30% after several months, and finally indefinitely postponed their timelines.

In March 2026, gold prices plummeted 25% from a historical high of $5,600 to around $4,200—the largest single-week drop since 1983. What was the reaction of the vast majority of institutions and celebrities? They maintained their original high target prices, even considering the plunge as "the best buying opportunity."

History does not simply repeat itself, but the script is indeed very similar.

So how do they view the future now?

Since we've dug it all up, 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, bullish direction unchanged Inflation expectations returning + long-term structural rise McMillan $10,000 within five years Central bank gold purchases + U.S. debt crisis + BRICS de-dollarization Dalio No price given, recommends allocation of 5-15% Structural decline in fiat currency credit Jamie Dimon May reach $10,000 within this year Economic concerns + inflation + asset bubbles Peter Schiff $11,400 within three years Calls recent drop "illogical" Kiyosaki $35,000 After "the biggest bubble burst in history" JPMorgan $6,300 Believes the plunge is profit-taking Goldman Sachs $5,400 Bull market not over UBS $6,200 Maintains bullish stance

Did you see that? From $5,400 to $35,000, the highest and lowest differ by nearly seven times. In the same market environment, with the same data sources, the answers given by these top minds around the world can vary so greatly.

So, have we found the "wealth code"?

After completing all the analysis, my conclusion is: I did not find it.

Institutions are always chasing, influencers are always shouting, and legendary predictors are not always accurate—they are only right at certain specific moments, and those times they were wrong are forgotten. Overlaying the predictions of these three types of people does not yield a more accurate answer; instead, it becomes more chaotic. Because they often contradict each other at the same point in time.

I originally thought that "finding the most accurate person and following them" was a path. After conducting this research, I discovered that in the field of gold predictions, there is fundamentally no "always accurate person." There are only "those who happened to be right this time."

Final Thoughts

The single gold has completely demystified the so-called financial experts for me.

Whether ALPHA can be captured by you, beyond models and data, may really depend on fate.

Therefore, in the end, rather than trying to crack the wealth code, I decided it is better to learn from Dalio—do not predict specific prices, acknowledge uncertainty, and manage risk through allocation.

I will continue to accumulate gold this year after entering the market last year. Personally, I calculate the investment time dimension on a ten-year cycle.