{"id":17193,"date":"2026-01-30T10:52:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17193"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:52:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:52:20","slug":"whats-driving-record-gold-demand-in-a-5-000-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=17193","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s driving record gold demand in a $5 000 market?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/iframe.iono.fm\/e\/1640867?layout=modern\" width=\"100%\" height=\"170\" frameborder=\"0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>I\u2019m chatting with Krishan Gopaul, market strategist at the World Gold Council, we\u2019ve just had the Global Demand Trends report out for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Krish, appreciate the time, records everywhere, demand in 2025, 5 000 tonnes. In fact, I think 5 002 tonnes, for the first time above 5 000. Of course, subsequent to year end, in the last week or so, we\u2019ve got the gold price through $5 000\/ounce. It\u2019s been a stellar year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely. It really has been an eye-catching time in the gold market. As you say, annual gold demand of over 5 000 tonnes, in value terms, that\u2019s over $550 billion. That\u2019s 45% up year-on-year and all of that is against the backdrop of the gold price, which was up 67% during the year, during which it also set 53 all-time highs, and it\u2019s continued in that vein as we\u2019ve moved into 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yeah, I think January, I haven\u2019t checked, but last I did check it was over 20% up in January alone. It\u2019s been stellar. Let\u2019s touch on central banks, they were year-on-year down 21%. In fact, the previous three years had been plus 1 000 tonnes. This was down from that. But still, if it wasn\u2019t for that, it would have been a record year.<\/p>\n<p>The central banks are still buying, but perhaps a little more cautiously. My sense is that would perhaps be more around price rather than circumstances, because geopolitically the story is still there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>Absolutely. Yes, you\u2019re absolutely right. So I think the central bank\u2019s buying of 863 tonnes last year was slightly below the 1000-ton level, which we saw in \u201922, \u201923 and \u201924.\u00a0But if you compare that to the annual average that we saw before \u2013 so 2010 to 2021 \u2013 it\u2019s actually significantly above. So it\u2019s still very, very healthy.<\/p>\n<p>But nonetheless, you\u2019re absolutely right, it was a slightly slower pace last year, and the price rally was somewhat of a headwind for central banks. You rightly point out that the environment that we\u2019re in is still very conducive to gold investment and still very much conducive and supportive for further central bank buying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Absolutely. We did see a bit of selling as well \u2013 Russia, no surprises there. But from Singapore, you\u2019ve tweeted as well, and more recently Ghana, although Ghana rebalancing, and then Tanzania, where they\u2019re using it to fund infrastructure, which actually makes a bit of sense. I\u2019d never really looked at the selling side before. I suppose there is a little bit, but it really is at the tail.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely. It\u2019s very much a two-way market; there is buying and there is selling. But what you can see from the report is selling is hugely outweighed by the levels of buying that we see. Those sales tend to, when they do come, tend to be more tactical in nature for very specific reasons amongst central banks.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s why whenever we look at any particular sale, we always look for the reasoning behind that, to understand, because it can differ between central banks. But again, it is, in comparison to the purchases, much, much smaller.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Investments \u2013 and all investments, looking at bars, coins, ETFs (exchange-traded fund) and the like \u2013 strong. What, 84% up year-on-year? I\u2019m reminded that in 2024 ETF demand was actually negative. Last year it was a little over 800 tonnes. The private investor has really come to the party in the last year in a significant way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>It really has, yeah. You\u2019re right to pinpoint gold ETFs. It was a huge swing from slightly small outflows in 2024 to significant inflows in 2025. What\u2019s really interesting about that is it was geographically dispersed, so we look at it across the world. North American funds \u2013 the biggest market for gold ETFs \u2013 saw the largest inflows. But what was very interesting is that Europe, which I think is the second-largest market, was actually third for inflows. Asia overtook Europe last year in terms of the volume of inflows. They saw 215 tonnes. China in particular, their holdings within gold ETFs actually doubled.<\/p>\n<p>So that was a real, real interesting dynamic. On the bar and coin side, you\u2019re absolutely right. Again, we saw very strong demand, a 12-year high for that, and again, very strong in value terms. Again, that was very geographically dispersed. We saw a lot of interest across the various regions.<\/p>\n<p>So again, highlighting that gold investment really was the standout story last year for many of the reasons that you\u2019ll see in the news, the higher level of uncertainty that\u2019s both happening in the geopolitical sphere and in the geo-economic sphere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely, and it stood out. I can remember India, it was the savings in India, and a very, very price-sensitive market \u2013 and we\u2019re going back here a decade or more \u2013 exceedingly price sensitive.<\/p>\n<p>But this has almost been, I suppose, to a degree, the speed at which gold has moved, and it almost \u2013 I don\u2019t want to call it a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) trade \u2013 but there\u2019s a sense of you bought some and it worked. Because even India, which is called price sensitive, year on year, 17% more demand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>Yeah. There is certainly momentum being a factor here. As the price continues to increase, people\u2019s expectations will adjust. If they believe that there is more room for gold to run, then they may want to either buy into gold or increase whatever holdings they may have already. So it\u2019s definitely a factor amongst many.<\/p>\n<p>We cite in the report that there are a broad range of factors that have really underpinned that investment demand, and to a lesser extent the central bank demand. But certainly, I think given the speed and scale at which the gold price has moved, it\u2019s understandable that people are seeing that and wanting to get involved.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yeah. Mine production up only 1%. If you\u2019re a gold mining executive, I imagine you\u2019re looking at your old mines that perhaps weren\u2019t profitable at $2000 or $3000. That\u2019s probably going to start edging higher, although I don\u2019t think necessarily fast, because greenfields are slow and brownfields often those mines are exceedingly challenging.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>You\u2019re absolutely right. Changes in the gold price certainly influence the dynamics within the mining industry. Obviously, last year we saw a slight increase to what we think early estimates are suggesting is a new record high for annual demand. But mine production is often quite slow-moving and responds to the gold price with a lag.<\/p>\n<p>So it remains to be seen. I think there are two questions really. Firstly, what will happen to the gold price as we move forward, and certainly, how will miners respond to that? We have seen, obviously, and we\u2019ve written about how, as well as the gold price going up, the costs have gone up too, maybe to a lesser extent, which has supported their margins. How that translates into actions around operations going forward, we really have to wait and see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Do we start to see some hedging? Certainly, there was a bit of an uptick. Do we start to see \u2013 again, if I were a gold mining executive at plus $5000 \u2013 I would be deeply tempted to hedge at least some production. Do you expect an uptick in that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>KRISHAN GOPAUL: <\/strong>Well, certainly what we\u2019ve seen is a continuing decline in the global hedge book. We\u2019re a long way off the levels that we saw at the turn of the millennium, when it was up to around 3 000 tonnes. We\u2019re now well below 200 tonnes.<\/p>\n<p>I think the indications that we\u2019re getting is that, for the time being at least \u2013 or when we wrote the report a couple of weeks ago \u2013 gold miners are still very much predisposed to remaining exposed to the gold price, given how it\u2019s been performing.<\/p>\n<p>I think also partly they\u2019re obviously conscious of what their shareholders might think as well should the gold price continue to increase. There is, again, another interesting dynamic around that too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SIMON BROWN: <\/strong>Yeah, their shareholders might be having a bit of a squiff look at them if they try to. We\u2019ll leave it there. Krishan Gopaul, market strategist, World Gold Council, always appreciate the time.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n                if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n                n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n                t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script>#Whats #driving #record #gold #demand #market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can also listen to this po&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[869,889,158,33,314,3055],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}