Gold Could Hit $5,000, Strategist Says. Why Others Are Worried About a Crash.

Investors normally don’t talk about the risks of a bubble forming in the asset that they’re buying to hedge against a different bubble, but gold’s extraordinary surge is starting to trigger uncomfortable conversations about the yellow metal’s bullish prospects.

Gold prices have gained more than 55% this year, blowing past the $3,000 an ounce mark in early spring and topping the $4,000 threshold for the first time on record last month. Gold was up another 3.3% to $4,108.60 in Monday trading, a new record high.

Myriad reasons have been cited for the surge, including the slumping U.S. dollar, soaring tech stocks that have concentrated broader market risks into a handful of megacap tech names, purchases by central banks seeking to diversify away from the dollar, and renewed inflation risks tied to ongoing tariff and trade disputes.

Central bank buying has also been significant, with China alone adding 39.2 tons to its overall holdings since it returned to the market in November of last year.

“Central banks’ appetite for gold is driven by concerns from countries about Russian-style sanctions on their foreign assets in the wake of decisions made by the U.S. and Europe to freeze Russian assets, as well as shifting strategies on currency reserves,” said ING commodities strategist Ewa Manthey.

“The pace of buying by central banks doubled following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

Gold-backed ETFs , meanwhile, are attracting billions in new investments, with overall additions likely to have topped 100 tons over the three months ending in September. That’s more than triple the quarterly average over the past eight years.

The combination of forces is likely to drive more gains for gold in the months ahead, according to Société Générale’s commodity research team, headed by Mike Haigh.

“Gold’s ascent to $5000 seems increasingly inevitable,” Haigh wrote in a note published Monday, citing both strong ETF flows and renewed central bank purchases.

Haigh also notes that ETF flows are tracking a rise in SocGen’s U.S. uncertainty index, which is now pegged at more than three times the level it reached over the five months before last year’s presidential election win for President Donald Trump.

“We cannot imagine a situation where we return to pre-Trump index uncertainty normalcy over our forecast horizon, so ETF flows are a key component to our price forecasting,” Haigh said. His $500o price target is pegged for the end of 2026.

Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, has a different take, tied in part to what she sees as a way for governments to “challenge the dollar’s stranglehold on global money movements.”

Gold holdings, Shalett argues, can “improve collateralisation of their fiat currencies and/or cryptocurrencies in a world where currency markets undefined may be remade by digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins.”

The gold market’s mimicry of previous historic booms, however, has caught the attention of Bank of America analyst Paul Ciana, who cautioned in a note published last week that “prices have tended to pivot near round-number levels.”

Citing data showing “midway corrections” in long term bull markets for gold, Ciana sees the chances for a near-term pullback that “rhymes” with pullbacks of around 40% in the mid-1970s and 25% following the global financial crisis in 2008.

“This boom is about 10 years old, smaller in size than the 1970s and 2000s boom but nearly as old,” Ciana wrote. “This warrants caution into round number resistance at $4,000, or again later at $5,000.”

Gold isn’t likely a bubble. It’s hard for central banks to sell, and many of the countries encouraging its import, like China and India, also make it difficult for investors to move offshore.

But gold did lose around 60% of its value in the two decades that followed its 1970s boom, with bear markets following in 2008 and 2015.

This year’s really is still going strong, of course, but with gold’s advance tied to nearly all of the concerns currently gripping financial markets, maybe it’s worth asking if it’s being “all things to all people” is the best kind of hedge—or just another risky bet on rising prices.

It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.

On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.

The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.

Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.

“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.

“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”

Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Photo: NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft being rolled out at night. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

What are the goals for Artemis II?

The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.

The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.

Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.

SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .

How is the mission expected to unfold?

Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.

The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.

After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.

Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.

Water photo: NASA’s Orion capsule after its splash-down in the Pacific Ocean in 2022 for the Artemis I mission. Mario Tama/Press Pool

Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?

Yes.

For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.

Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?

The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.

Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.

Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.

Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.

What will the astronauts do during the flight?

The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.

Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.

On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.

There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.

Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.

The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.

What happens after Artemis II?

Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.

NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.

Gold Could Hit $5,000, Strategist Says. Why Others Are Worried About a Crash.

The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.