"Most Central Bank Gold Buying Is Unreported": In Stunning New Report, Goldman Sees "Significantly Higher" Gold Prices

In recent weeks we have discussed various reasons behind the remarkable spike in the price of gold, which pushed the yellow metal to an all time high and which can be traced first and foremost to a surge in Chinese buying -  one which we first identified long before everyone else, all the way back in Dec 2022 (with "China Said To Be Mystery Buyer Stockpiling Gold To "Cut Dollar Dependence"") and again in Jan 2023 (with "What's Behind The Soaring Gold Price: China Quietly Buys 100 Tons Of Gold In Days"), and which - along with the price of gold - has only accelerated in recent days, culminating with "China Has Taken Over Gold Price Control from the West", "China Gold-Buying Frenzy Sparks Chaos In ETFs" and "Chinese Consumers Overtake India In Gold-Buying Frenzy"

But while a ravenous appetite by China for all things gold is certainly one of the main pillars behind the explosive move higher in gold, it's not the only driver: indeed, as we first pointed out last month, it all started with the US response to the war in Ukraine, whereby the weaponization of the dollar led to a historic flight by various central banks out of the US reserves and into gold, and has led to an unprecedented divergence between the price of gold and monetary gold as measured by ETF holdings, as increasingly the price of gold was set not through financial instruments such as ETFs (which can be easily manipulated by western banks and the BIS) but rather by physical gold itself.

why oh why did gold decouple from gold ETFs in 2022, just as central banks unleashed a record gold buying spree pic.twitter.com/qFb0ZCPOF4

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 17, 2024