The de-dollarization frenzy is back! RBC is adamantly bullish on gold, saying the price of gold is ready to rush back to $5,000

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Christopher Lawney, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital, said in the latest commodity analysis report released on Wednesday that recent high-frequency trends in gold indicate that geopolitical turmoil, global de-dollarization, and concerns about the depreciation of the US dollar are returning to a dominant position. The precious metal is now ready to move back to the $5,000 per ounce mark.

Lowney wrote, “We have previously indicated that although the underlying support factors for gold may have stopped working for a while, they are still intact. Although exchange-traded product (ETP) positions have been declining for more than a quarter, we believe asset allocation driven by a return of uncertainty, de-dollarization, and concerns about depreciation is still expected, and that these capital flows will return and drive the price of gold higher — a view supported by gold's rebound in early August, current pricing, and capital inflow patterns.”

“We still believe that gold should be in the $4,500 to $5,000 per ounce range for most of the rest of the year (a view that remains unchanged and very confident),” said Loney. By the end of this year, we tend to meet the high forecast scenario for 2026 ($4,929 per ounce); similarly, in 2027, we are leaning towards a high of $5,296 an ounce.”

On Wednesday, as oil prices fell and US bond yields pulled back from overnight highs, gold futures stopped three consecutive days of decline and achieved a moderate rebound.

The market is closely watching the non-farm payrolls report to be released on Friday. Strong employment data is likely to increase market expectations of the Fed's interest rate hike, thereby putting pressure on precious metals prices.

The near-month gold futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.4% to close at $4,366.30 an ounce; the near-month silver futures for September delivery rose slightly by 0.1% to close at $64.723 an ounce.

The central bank's “gold rush”

Central banks around the world are reshaping reserve asset structures with unprecedented vigor. According to the latest statistics from the World Gold Council (WGC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the share of gold in the world's official foreign exchange reserves has risen to around 27%, surpassing the share of US treasury bonds for the first time since 1996.

The “2026 Global Central Bank Gold Reserve Survey” released by the World Gold Council on June 16 gave an extremely impactful figure: 89% of the central banks surveyed expect global central bank gold reserves to continue to increase in the next 12 months, 45% of central banks said they will increase their gold holdings in the next year, and 84% of central banks believe that the share of gold in global total reserves will rise in the next five years. What is even more interesting is that 74% of the central banks surveyed expect that the share of the US dollar in global reserves will decline in the next five years.

According to data from the European Central Bank on June 2, by the end of 2025, the share of gold in the world's central bank reserve assets had risen from 20% a year ago to 27%, while the share of US treasury bonds fell from 25% to 22% — for the first time in gold history, surpassing US debt to become the world's largest official reserve asset. Global central bank purchases reached 863 tons in 2025, far higher than the annual average of 473 tons in 2010-2021; the net purchase of 244 tons in the first quarter of 2026 was higher than the average for the previous quarter and the past five years.

Although the IMF points out that the rapid increase in the value of gold in official reserves is due in part to the “pricing effect” of a sharp rise in gold prices, the World Gold Council survey shows that 89% of the central banks surveyed expect that official gold reserves will continue to grow in the future, and the demand for structural allocation brought about by de-dollarization has become a long-term trend.

Wall Street giants are collectively bullish: the target price directly points to the 5,000 US dollar mark

Faced with the combination of the central bank's structured buying cycle and the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut cycle, the top Wall Street investment banks have raised their long-term price expectations for gold.

Goldman Sachs expects the price of gold to reach 4,900 US dollars by the end of 2026. The main driving force is the central bank's strong normalized allocation of 50 tons per month and the market's repricing of the interest rate cut cycle. Damo predicts that the price of gold will exceed 5,000 US dollars, and Xiaoma predicts that the price of gold is expected to reach the range of 5,400 to 6000 US dollars around 2027.

The gold price dive in early September revealed the complexity of gold pricing. On September 1-2, London spot gold fell by a cumulative total of 160 US dollars in two trading days, and once fell below the 4,300 US dollar mark. The direct trigger was that Federal Reserve Chairman Walsh sent a hawkish signal at the Jackson Hole annual meeting. The market-calculated probability of an interest rate hike in September jumped from less than 40% to nearly 60%, the 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 4.75%, and the opportunity cost of holding zero-interest gold was raised sharply.

What is even more abnormal is that while the escalating geographical conflict in the Middle East is driving up oil prices, the price of gold is falling — the traditional logic of “buying gold in a troubled world” has temporarily failed. Xu Yaxin, a researcher at the Beijing Gold Economic Development Research Center, pointed out that expectations of interest rate hikes brought about by energy inflation have suppressed the strength of the geopolitical safe-haven premium in the short term.

However, the medium- to long-term support logic has not disappeared. Everbright Futures Dapeng believes that US debt sustainability issues, damage to US dollar credit, continued purchases by central banks around the world, and net inflow of gold ETF funds will still provide bottom support for gold prices. The real test was the Federal Reserve's interest rate meeting on September 17 and the August non-farm payrolls data released on September 4.