Gold Prices Fell 25%. Retail Sentiment Then Hit a 12-Year High.

Investing in gold has never had more people agreeing on it at once. A new survey of private investors just recorded the highest bullish reading in 12 years of comparable data, the kind of consensus that normally shows up after a huge run, not after a correction. But gold is still trading more than 25 percent below the all-time high it hit in January. Something doesn’t add up, and figuring out what does is the actual work here.

BullionVault’s Survey Just Recorded a 12-Year High

The survey comes from BullionVault, which has polled precious metals investors twice a year since late 2014. The mid-2026 edition pulled in more than 950 responses, and the headline number is stark. Private investor optimism about gold and silver has reached its highest level in the survey’s 12-year history, even with both metals well off their peaks. On average, respondents expect gold to be near $4,665 per ounce by early next year, a gain of roughly 14 percent from its level during the survey window.

Nearly half of the investors surveyed pointed to the previous record highs themselves as the reason for the pullback that followed. Profit taking, cooling demand, and a pause in central bank buying all did their part once prices got stretched. That’s a pattern worth remembering: sufficiently high prices tend to create the conditions for their own correction.

BofA’s Fund Managers Now Call Gold Undervalued

Retail sentiment isn’t the only signal that moved. Bank of America’s Global Fund Manager Survey found that institutional investors now consider gold undervalued for the first time in more than three years. That’s a real reversal. Earlier in the cycle, the same survey had gold ranked among the most crowded trades in the market.

Institutional targets have actually converged lower over the past month. J.P. Morgan initially projected $6,000 for the fourth quarter when it issued that call on June 9, then cut it by 25 percent to $4,500 on July 3, citing softer demand from key buying sectors and gold’s growing sensitivity to real interest rates. The bank now projects a $4,300 average for the third quarter. J.P. Morgan’s long-term bull case remains fully intact; it’s the near-term number that moved. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank all currently sit above JPMorgan’s Q4 call, in the $4,800 to $4,900 range.

So the retail crowd is more bullish than it has ever been. The institutions just flipped from caution to calling gold cheap, even as their own short-term price targets got trimmed. Neither fact tells you whether today is a good day to buy. They’re measuring two different things: one is a mood reading, the other is a valuation call.

Deficits and Central Bank Buying Still Drive the Bull Case

The bull case for gold was never really about a chart pattern. It rests on government deficits, central banks diversifying their reserves away from the dollar, and persistent doubt about how developed economies manage their debt loads. None of that changed because a survey came back with a record number on it, and it didn’t change because one bank trimmed a quarterly target either. If deficits keep widening and central banks keep buying, the structural argument for holding some gold doesn’t weaken just because retail investors are excited about it right now.

The counterargument is just as real. Record sentiment readings have historically shown up right before a price stalls out, not right before it takes off. When almost everyone in a survey is already bullish, there are fewer people left who haven’t already bought. That’s not a reason to abandon the thesis. It’s a reason to think hard about how much you add and when.

Three Ways to Size a Gold Position Right Now

Investing in gold well right now comes down to separating two decisions that get treated as one. The first is whether gold belongs in your portfolio at all, which depends on the debasement and reserve diversification case holding up over years, not on a single survey or a single bank’s quarterly revision. The second is whether this specific month is the right time to add, which depends heavily on how crowded the trade already is.

Those two answers can point in opposite directions at the same time, and that’s fine. A hedge can be structurally sound and still be a bad entry point in the same breath.

• If you don’t currently hold any gold or hard assets, a record sentiment reading after a 25 percent drop is not the moment to build a full position in one move. Layer in gradually and let the next few months of price action tell you more than the survey did.
• If you already hold a strategic allocation, typically in the 5 to 10 percent range, the move is to rebalance back to that target rather than let a good headline talk you into overweighting it. The mechanism behind the thesis didn’t change. Your allocation drifting above target is a rebalancing problem, not a reason to add more.
• If your approach is to hold a fixed, diversified allocation and rebalance on a schedule regardless of what any single survey says, none of this changes your plan. That discipline is its own kind of protection against exactly the FOMO dynamic this survey is flagging. 

For a deeper look at how crowded trades have played out across financial history, from tulip mania to the dot-com era, Devil Take the Hindmost is one of the sharper breakdowns of why consensus enthusiasm and good timing are rarely the same thing. 

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Record Sentiment Doesn’t Mean The Rally Is Over

Whichever camp you’re in, the sizing conversation matters more than the headline. For a broader look at fitting hard assets like gold into a portfolio built for a shifting rate environment, see our earlier breakdown on adjusting your portfolio.

A discussion on the Bogleheads forum captured the split well: being uncorrelated with stocks isn’t enough on its own; an investor still has to weigh whether the expected return justifies the risk of holding it. That’s the tension. Gold’s insurance value and its price momentum are not the same argument, and treating them as one is how investors end up buying the top of a crowded trade instead of the hedge they actually wanted.

Investing in gold isn’t a yes or no question right now. It’s a sizing question, and the survey data only answers half of it.

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