If I gather all the most accurate forecasters of a financial product - such as gold - throughout history, the most authoritative institutions, and the most famous analysts, compare each of their forecasts to actual results, find out "who is the most accurate"... and then see how these "most accurate" individuals view the future now?
Wouldn't I then have uncovered the wealth password of this financial asset?
With this idea in mind, I really did it. I took gold as a sample and examined over a decade of forecasting records.
For this study, we brought out three types of people: the top-tier Wall Street investment banks and industry institutions, the loudest voices in the gold race, and the "god-tier players" who accurately predicted key reversals.
We looked at the data one by one.
We Laid Out All the Forecast Data We Found
Wall Street Professional Institutions:
· LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) invites dozens of top analysts each year to make annual gold forecasts. In 2025, the average forecast from 28 analysts was $2,735 per ounce. The most optimistic analyst that year - Keisuke (Bill) Okui of Sumitomo Corporation - gave $2,925 because it was the "closest to the actual" and received the "Most Accurate Forecast Award."
Actual average gold price in 2025? $3,431.
This means that even the most bullish and award-winning analyst in the market still underestimated by 15%. The market consensus underestimated by a staggering 20%.
· Goldman Sachs has two prominent records in gold forecasting history. In April 2013, Goldman Sachs issued a report explicitly recommending shorting gold with a target of $1,450. Gold subsequently plummeted by 26%, and Goldman Sachs became god-tier.
However, more recently, Goldman Sachs stumbled. In October 2024, Goldman Sachs predicted a 2025 gold price of $2,700.
What actually happened? The gold price skyrocketed throughout 2025, breaking through $5,600 in early 2026. It was off by a factor of two.
· JPMorgan projected a 2026 gold price benchmark of $5,055 by the end of 2025. The gold price surpassed this level ahead of schedule.
Gold Market Voices:
· Peter Schiff, the most famous "perma-bull" in the gold circle. He has been calling for "$5,000 gold" for over a decade. During the 2013-2018 period when the gold price traded sideways for five to six years, he was criticized every day and mocked as the "stopped clock." However, the gold price did break above $5,000 in early 2026. In his latest remarks (March 23), he stated that the recent drop is "illogical" and predicted that the gold price will soar to $11,400 within three years.
· Jim Rickards, another prominent figure who has long held onto the "$10,000 gold" thesis. The core logic behind this is that the BRICS nations' de-dollarization will force a global currency system reset. While the direction is correct, the timeline has been repeatedly postponed, and the target price has not been achieved to this day.
· Robert Kiyosaki (author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad"), predicted in mid-March that after the upcoming "largest bubble burst in history," gold will reach $35,000.
Foretellers of Reversals - The Gods of Prediction:
· Nouriel Roubini ("Dr. Doom"), became famous for predicting the 2008 financial crisis. He has made two excellent calls on gold: In June 2013, when the gold price was around $1,400, he wrote an article stating that the "gold bubble is bursting," with a target of $1,000. By the end of 2015, the gold price touched a low of $1,050, perfectly confirming his prediction. In January 2023, with gold price hovering at $1,900, he turned bullish, forecasting a 10% annual increase over five years, with a target of $3,000. The gold price later far exceeded this amount.
· Ben McMillan (Chief Investment Officer of IDX Advisors), stood out in the recent market trend. In early 2024, with gold around $2,000, he predicted a target of $5,000 within five years. The market at that time thought it was "almost crazy." The gold price, however, reached this level in just a year and a half.
· Ray Dalio (Founder of Bridgewater Associates), without giving specific price targets, provides a qualitative assessment from a macroeconomic perspective. In January 2026, he referred to gold as the "second-largest currency" and recommended a portfolio allocation of 5-15%.
After Seeing the Data, You Might Think—Some People Are Quite Accurate?
Don't rush. The above is only about their "most famous occasions." When I pulled out their full records to review, the picture looked different.
Wall Street Professional Institutions: Typical Lagging Predictions
What does lagging prediction mean? It means that the bull market has already arrived before they start raising their target prices; however, the adjustments never catch up with the actual price increase. When the bear market arrives, they start lowering their targets, but they always do it too slowly.
The LBMA's 28 analysts are the best example. They make an annual prediction, essentially making a slight extrapolation of the "trends that have already occurred." By 2024, when the gold price had already risen to $2,700, their median prediction for 2025 was only at $2,735—almost just moving last year's closing price forward as a prediction. As a result, the average price in 2025 was $3,431, a 20% face slap.
Goldman Sachs follows a similar pattern. At the end of 2024, their 2025 projection was only $2,700, while the gold price later surged past $5,000. J.P. Morgan gave a $5,055 target price, but the gold price broke through earlier.
What these types of institutions are actually doing is more accurately termed **"trend confirmation"**—telling you that what has already happened is indeed happening, but their judgment on the magnitude is always conservative. If you wait for their signals to make decisions, you will always be a step behind.
Track V Stars: A Broken Clock Can Be Right Twice a Day
Peter Schiff has been calling for $5,000 gold for over a decade. Jim Rickards has always been shouting $10,000. Kiyosaki directly calls for $35,000.
Their strategy essentially involves calling for an increase every year; if it goes up, it's "I've been saying that all along," if it drops, it's "it's not time yet."
Even more fatally, such predictions lack time granularity. They do not tell you when to enter or when to exit. If you went all-in on gold in 2011 based on Schiff's advice, you would have to endure five to six years of sideways movement and losses before seeing today's price. Belief in this kind of approach, when you're down 40%, has no stop-loss function.
Mythical Trader: Have They Always Been Right?
This type of person is the most misleading. Because they have indeed made astounding accurate judgments at some key moments, the market has bestowed upon them the halo of a "prophet." But when I pull up their complete record and take a look, the picture isn't so perfect.
Roubini was bearish in 2013 and then bullish in 2023. He caught both turning points, which is indeed impressive.
But do you know what he missed in between? When the gold price broke $1,000 in 2009, Roubini publicly said, "It can't rise another 20-30%." The result? The gold price kept rising to $1,900 in 2011, nearly a 90% increase. By the end of 2009, when the gold price reached $1,200, he again said, "Looks very much like a bubble," "Gold has no intrinsic value."
Throughout the entire 2009-2012 gold bull market, Roubini kept singing bearish tunes, completely missing out. No one mentions this part of history. Everyone only remembers his beautiful bearish call in 2013 and bullish call in 2023.
Ben McMillan predicted in early 2024 that gold would reach $5,000 within five years, and it hit that mark in just a year and a half. The logic was based on the structural change in central bank gold purchases, which was indeed correct. However, the issue is that this was his only widely documented prediction in the gold field. A sample size of one. Does getting it right once demonstrate systemic predictive ability?
Ray Dalio sounds like the most stable—he doesn't predict prices, just gives allocation advice. But if you look at his macro predictions: in 1981, he was steadfast in his belief that the U.S. was heading for a Great Depression, shouting it from newspapers, TV, and congressional hearings, only to be completely wrong, nearly bankrupting Bridgewater and having to borrow $4,000 from his father to pay the bills. In 2015, he said "1937 is going to replay," but it didn't. In 2018, he said "recession within two years," but it didn't come. In October 2022, he shouted "perfect storm"—that month happened to be the bottom of the U.S. stock market.
He predicts a financial crisis almost every two to three years, and the vast majority never materializes. But ironically, his statement, "You don't need to predict prices, just need to allocate 5-15%," has become the most useful advice among all.
The Script of 2011 is Replaying in 2026
The report contains a particularly interesting finding.
In 2011, before the gold price peaked at $1,923, market predictions underwent a crazy exponential amplification: at the beginning of the year, everyone predicted $2,000, then it doubled by mid-year, approaching the top Jim Sinclair called for $12,500, and Rob Kirby called for $15,000. The most extreme prediction occurred just a few weeks before the actual peak.
Then, in September, the gold price crashed. How did the predictors react? They first mentioned a "healthy correction," then, reluctantly, a few months later, they adjusted their target prices down by 20-30%, ultimately postponing the timetable indefinitely.
In March 2026, the gold price plummeted 25% from its historic high of $5,600 to around $4,200 — the largest single-week drop since 1983. What was the reaction of the vast majority of institutions and celebrities? They maintained their original extremely high target prices, even considering the crash as the "best buying opportunity."
History will not repeat in a simple manner, but the script is indeed very similar.
So, How Do They View the Future Now?
Since we've dug into the past, let's also list out their latest judgments for everyone's reference:
· Roubini Previously targeted $3,000 has been achieved, and the future outlook remains bullish, core logic: return of inflation expectations + long-term structural rise
· McMillan Believes $10,000 will be reached within five years, core logic: central bank gold purchases + US debt crisis + de-dollarization by BRICS
· Dalio Still not providing a price target, suggests allocating 5-15% to fiat currency credit structural decline
· Jamie Dimon Believes $10,000 could be reached within this year, core logic: economic concerns + inflation + asset bubble
· Peter Schiff Expects $11,400 within three years, calling the recent drop "illogical"
· Kiyosaki Thinks it could reach $35,000, to be achieved after the "biggest bubble burst in history"
· JPMorgan believes it will reach $6,300, core logic: the sell-off is profit-taking
· Goldman Sachs believes the price will reach $5,400, core logic: the bull market is not over
· UBS believes it will reach $6,200 and remains bullish
See that? From $5,400 to $35,000, the highest and lowest levels are nearly 7 times apart. Same market environment, same data source, yet the answers from these top global minds can vary so much.
So, has "The Wealth Code" been found?
After I completed all my research and analysis, my conclusion is: it has not been found.
Institutions are always chasing, influencers are always shouting, and the legendary players are not always accurate—they are just right at certain moments, and no one remembers when they are wrong. Piling up the predictions of these three groups of people not only does not yield a more accurate answer but instead creates more confusion. Because they often contradict each other at the same time.
I used to think that "find the most accurate person and follow them" was the way to go. After completing this research, I discovered that in the field of gold prediction, there is simply no "always most accurate person," only "the person who happened to be right this time."
Final Thoughts
A single gold event completely disillusioned me with the so-called financial experts
Whether you can capture ALPHA, besides models and data, may really depend on fate.
So, in the end, rather than trying to crack the wealth code, I decided to follow Dalio—do not predict specific prices, acknowledge uncertainty, and use allocation to manage risk.
I invested in gold last year, and I will continue to do so this year. Personally, I calculate the investment time frame based on a 10-year cycle.
