(Kitco News) – Gold prices will approach $3,200 this year, while silver will get close to $40 per ounce in 2025, according to Ross Norman, CEO of Metals Daily.
In his recently published 2025 precious metals price outlook, Norman demonstrated that he’s among the most bullish experts in the precious metals complex, and this despite acknowledging that market participants still don’t fully understand what drove last year’s rally.
“To know the future, you need to understand the past,” he said. “But with little or no consensus as to why gold achieved a 27% gain in 2024, it makes it especially hard to gauge whether the trend will prevail; institutional (ETF) demand is flat, investment demand is lacklustre, while reported central bank demand is below the last 2 year levels. Worst of all and most perversely, gold's inverse correlation with many traditional macro drivers are out the window.”
“Arguably, dollar strength and rising treasury yields may have only served to temper the rate of gold price increase - and hence them moving in parallel, suggesting to us that gold prices could accelerate again once the handbrake is off,” he added. “This indicates to us good underlying strength in the market.”
Norman believes much of gold’s price appreciation was likely driven by unreported central bank buying and “outlandish” Asian OTC derivatives plays. “If we are right, then we see no reason for a change in mode in 2025 and the gold rally remains intact, but perhaps a little less so,” he said.
“In 2025, the world may be more convivial, US economic prospects and the dollar brighten, plus we may well see an echo to inflation as we did in the 1970's – but we think this matters less than it should,” he concluded. “The high conviction buying looks set to remain, even if the motive remains a matter of debate.”
Norman sees spot gold averaging $2,888 per ounce in 2025, with a high of $3,175 and a low of $2,630.
On silver, Norman is equally bullish, even though the supply and demand picture is no less murky.
“Sometimes unkindly referred to as the 'cinderella metal' (because it often misses the ball) … silver did receive the memo in 2024 and posted a solid 33% gain on the year,” he noted. “Arguably though, it should have done even better because, as gold's alter ego, it would typically be expected to significantly outperform during the seismic shift these metals are seeing.”
Norman said it’s worrying that even amid rising industrial demand and another annual supply deficit forecast, physical investment demand continues to decline, and ETF investment is underwhelming. “Parallels with gold are clear,” he said. “To mix metaphors, this is not yet a market firing on all cylinders. We estimate the supply deficit will be around 250 million ounces in 2025 satisfied by a commensurate drawdown in pipeline metal. That can only happen for so long.”
He said that “silver is not an 'ugly sister', but to be clear, nor is this yet a fairy tale story either,” and warned that a new all-time high above $49 per ounce “may take a little while.”
Norman forecasts spot silver to average $34.16 per ounce across the full year, hitting a high of $38.46 and a low of $29.10 per ounce.
