Gold, Silver Pullback Is Not The End Of Rally, JPMorgan Reportedly Says After Forecast Cut

• JPMorgan expects the 2026 average gold price to be around $5,243 per ounce, but expects prices to rise towards $6,000 per ounce by the end of the year. 
• The bank also expects silver to average $90 per ounce by the fourth quarter of 2026. 
• Meanwhile, Robin J. Brooks, a former Goldman Sachs strategist, said this past week was a "natural experiment" for gold, torn between rising oil prices on one hand and rising yields on the other.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) reportedly lowered its 2026 average gold price forecast late Sunday, citing softer near-term demand for precious metals, as investor interest cools amid elevated inflation and energy market uncertainty.

The bank also expressed greater caution about silver, saying the extreme tightness in physical markets that fueled the metal’s recent outperformance is likely to fade, according to a Reuters report.

However, JPMorgan expects both precious metals to climb by the end of the year amid easing energy and inflation uncertainties, as well as a rebound in investor and central bank demand.

Gold prices ​steadied in the overnight session heading into Monday ‌after slipping to a more than one-month low. Spot gold was trading around $4,530.33 per ounce at the time of writing. Meanwhile, spot silver was down 1.4%, trading around $74.89 per ounce.

Gold, Silver Targets From JPM

JPMorgan now expects the 2026 average gold price to be around $5,243 per ounce, lowered from $5,708 earlier. However, despite the downgrade, the bank still expects prices to rise towards $6,000 per ounce by the end of the year.

The New York City-based investment bank has said that it expects investors to gradually return to gold, supported by strong long-term bullish fundamentals. It also said that central bank demand would rebound in the second half of the year.

As per the Reuters report, JPM forecasts quarterly central bank and investor demand for gold to average around 620 tons a quarter in 2026, compared with 750 tons last year.

In the last trading session, gold fell to its lowest since March 30 amid ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran boosted oil prices, fuelling concerns around inflation and higher key interest rates.

The bank also expects silver to reach an average of $90 per ounce by the fourth quarter of 2026. JPM’s stance is contrary to UBS, which recently lowered its outlook for global silver demand and reduced forecasts for the market deficit to between 60 million and 70 million ounces, down from previous estimates of about 300 million ounces.

The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), which is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of physical gold, has declined more than 13% since the start of the conflict. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which tracks the daily price movement of physical silver bullion, has declined nearly 19% in the same period.

Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, has gained more than 8% in the same time, and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq 100, has surged nearly 17%.

Gold’s ‘Debasement’ Trade

Robin J Brooks, a former Goldman Sachs strategist, in a livestream on Substack, described the recent move in gold as part of the “debasement trade” — one in which a “flight to safety into gold” fueled by concerns over “unsustainable fiscal policy” and mounting public debt burdens, caused it to temporarily stop behaving like a safe haven asset and instead trade more like a high-risk, momentum-driven asset.

Brooks said that this past week was a "natural experiment" for gold, which was torn between rising oil prices on one hand, and rising yields on the other. “Oil prices won, pushing gold down. The debasement trade is still dormant,” he said in a separate post on X.

Meanwhile, economist Peter Schiff reiterated his bullish stance on precious metals. “Once again, rising oil prices and bond yields are causing gold and silver to sell off. Traders are fixated on the fact that these moves make it less likely that the Fed will cut interest rates. But they're missing the plunge in real rates that is very bullish for precious metals,” he said in a post on X.

Markets are ​increasingly pricing in a ⁠U.S. Federal Reserve rate hike before the end of the year, with a 40.7% chance of a 25-basis-point rate hike by December, and another 12.1% chance of a 50 bps rate hike, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.

Retail Stance On GLD, SLV

Meanwhile, on Stocktwits, retail sentiment around GLD was in the ‘neutral’ territory amid ‘high’ message volumes at the time of writing. For SLV, sentiment was in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory amid ‘high’ message volumes.

GLD has rallied about 40% in the last one year, while SLV has soared more than 133%.

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