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The price of gold reached a milestone Thursday, hitting $3,000 per ounce for the first time – an all-time high.

As of Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. ET, gold was trading at about $3,005 per ounce, up some 12.6% year-to-date and nearly 40% over the past 12 months. And analysts say the gold rush is not yet over.

Just this week, analysts at Macquarie raised their price targets for gold. In a research note, Macquarie analyst Marcus Garvey said he expects the price of gold to hit $3,500 in the third quarter.

“We are raising our gold price forecast to a 3Q25 quarter average peak of $3,150 per ounce and our single point price high to $3,500 per ounce,” Garvey wrote in the note, reported Yahoo Finance. “President Trump’s rapid move to announce, if not always to enact, import tariffs has contributed to geopolitical uncertainty and boosted inflation expectations, helping push down front-end real rates and supporting gold in the face of periodic USD strength and initially reduced expectations for Fed rate cuts.”

The uncertain and challenging environment has contributed to gold’s rise as investors see it as a safe haven. And that will likely continue amid trade wars and economic concerns.

“All eyes are on how gold continues to play a role as a safe haven asset,” Joe Cavatoni, market strategist at the World Gold Council, said, reported Yahoo. “With rising inflation expectations, lower rates, and continued uncertainty, we continue to see support for gold looking ahead.”

Goldman Sachs raised its gold price target

These sentiments have been echoed by other analysts, including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. At the end of February, Goldman Sachs analysts boosted the price target to $3,100 by the end of 2025, from the previous $2,890.

“The increased forecast is underpinned by higher-than-expected demand for gold from central banks, which have been increasing their reserves of the commodity since the freezing of Russian central bank assets in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.

In addition, gold prices have gotten a lift from increased purchases of gold ETFs.

However, Goldman Sachs analysts said gold prices could rise as high as $3,300 per ounce this year if trade wars and sustained tariffs from the Trump administration persist. drive investors towards safe haven assets including gold.

“But continued uncertainty — whether it’s about tariffs, geopolitical risk, or fears about high government borrowing — could also push speculators to increase their long positions in gold. This scenario would drive the gold price as high as $3,300 per troy ounce by the end of 2025,” the Goldman Sachs team, led by Lina Thomas, wrote.

Other analysts, including UBS, have raised their targets. UBS analysts targeted a high of $3,200 this year before stabilizing at or around an elevated level.

“Our latest assessment of market conditions prompts us to update our gold views and revise our price forecasts higher. These changes bring forward the peak to the latter part of 2025, with gold reaching a higher level than what we had before,” UBS strategist Joni Teves wrote in a research note recently, reported Investing.com.

And with economic fears not subsiding, but increasing, Alex Ebkarian, co-founder of precious-metals dealer Allegiance Gold, told MarketWatch that “gold’s long-term strength remains undeniable”.

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