Goldman Sachs Research has restated its year-end target for gold: $4,900 per troy ounce by the end of 2026. The note, published on 2 September 2026 by analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven, puts the weight of the call on one buyer in particular: central banks.
Below is what the forecast actually says, what the headline number leaves out, and what a UK investor holding Capital Gains Tax free coins should take from it.
Where gold actually is today
Gold is $4,485.00 per troy ounce (£3,318.16) as at .
That figure deserves context, because 2026 has been a violent year for the gold price in both directions:
- Gold set a record of roughly $5,590 on 28 January 2026, its first move above the inflation adjusted 1980 high, on the back of US and Iran tensions.
- It then fell to an intraday low of about $4,024 on 11 June 2026, its weakest level since November 2025. That is a drawdown of roughly 28% from the January peak.
- It has since recovered around 11% off that low.
So gold today sits roughly 20% below its January record. Any honest reading of Goldman's $4,900 starts there.
What the $4,900 target really is
From today's level, $4,900 is about 9% higher. It is a recovery target, not a new record call. If gold hits it exactly on 31 December, the price will still be around 12% below where it traded in January.
There is a second detail worth knowing. Goldman cut this target to $4,900 on 19 June 2026, down $500 from a previous $5,400, when its economists pushed the expected timing of US rate cuts out to March 2027 and December 2027. Gold pays no income, so the longer rates stay where they are, the more it costs to hold. September's note reaffirms the lower number rather than raising it.
Goldman's own summary of its position is a good one: structurally constructive, tactically cautious, with near term downside risk and medium term upside risk.
Central banks kept buying the whole way down
This is the part of the forecast that matters most, and it is the part that survived the crash.
Goldman expects central banks to buy an average of 50 tonnes of gold a month through 2026. Before 2022, the average was 17 tonnes a month. That is roughly three times the old rate, sustained for years rather than quarters.
More striking still: in June 2026, the month gold bottomed, official sector buying ran at about 100 tonnes a month on a three month seasonally adjusted basis. Central banks bought hardest at the exact moment the price was at its lowest point of the year.
That behaviour tells you something a price chart cannot. Reserve managers are buying gold to hold it, in their own vaults, as an asset that cannot be frozen or sanctioned in the way a foreign government bond can. They are buying to hold. When the price fell 28%, they treated it as cheaper inventory.
Goldman also flags an upside it has deliberately left out of the base case: as gold climbs toward key strike levels on call options, dealers may have to buy the metal to hedge their exposure, which can accelerate a rally.
What this means if you own coins
If you hold physical gold rather than futures, the useful signal here is the buyer, not the target.
A forecast is one bank's opinion and it moves, as this one has, by $500 in a quarter. Sustained central bank demand is a structural fact about who owns gold and why. It is the reason a 28% fall this year found a floor and recovered, and it is the argument that holds whether the December print is $4,900, higher, or lower.
Two things follow for coin holders:
Time horizon does the heavy lifting
Gold managed a record high, a 28% fall and an 11% recovery inside eight months. Anyone who bought in late January and needed the money in June had a bad year. Anyone holding for a decade barely registered it. Physical coins suit the second timeframe, and that is how we talk about them.
Your return is in pounds
Every figure above is in US dollars, because that is how the banks quote gold. Your gain or loss is in sterling. At today's rate, $4,900 is about £3,625 an ounce, but the actual sterling outcome depends on where the pound sits at the time. A weaker pound helps a UK holder; a stronger one takes some of the move away.
The UK tax point
For UK residents there is an advantage that no forecast affects. Gold Sovereigns and Britannias are legal tender in the UK, so gains on them are free of Capital Gains Tax, and investment grade gold carries no VAT. On a holding that appreciates over years, that exemption is worth more than a few percent of forecast accuracy either way.
This is where a specialist matters. We deal in one category, graded UK gold coins, and we know it in detail: grade, mintage, provenance and how each of those affects what a coin is worth when you come to sell it back.
Book a call with a Bullion Club specialist to talk through what this environment means for your holding. Ask anything, decide nothing on the day.
Gold can fall as well as rise, as 2026 has demonstrated clearly. Forecasts from banks are opinions and are revised regularly. Past performance is not a guide to future performance, and nothing here is personal financial advice. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change.
