While world gold prices continuously set new historical records in 2025 and continue to break through today, a major paradox exists: US investors – both individuals and organizations – are still almost out of the game. According to Goldman Sachs' assessment, this indifference is opening up great room for price increases for precious metals in the near future.
Gold only accounts for "small part" of American asset portfolio
Goldman Sachs analysis shows that gold currently accounts for only about 0.17% of the total private financial portfolio in the US, equivalent to 17 basis points. This figure becomes particularly modest compared to the nearly $112 trillion scale that Americans are holding in the form of stocks and bonds.
Notably, the amount of gold held through ETF funds in the US is still lower than the peak of 2012, despite gold prices having increased sharply for more than a decade. This gap has existed continuously since gold ETFs appeared in the mid-2000s.
According to Goldman Sachs, this is not a matter of gold's attractiveness, but reflects a structural reality: the scale of US investors' portfolios has increased much faster than the price increase and trading volume of gold, causing the proportion of precious metals to become increasingly "small" in total assets.
Large organizations are also allocated at extremely low levels
Not only individual investors, but institutions in the US are also cautious about gold. Statistics show that less than half of the large financial institutions, managing over 100 million USD of assets, have any investments in gold ETFs.
Even in the participating group, the common allocation ranges from only 10 to 50 basis points, while long-term institutional investors – who are considered "veteran" – also only reserve about 20 basis points for gold in the portfolio.
This creates a clear paradox: gold prices continuously break peaks, but have not been reflected commensurately in the world's largest investment portfolios.
Wall Street advises to buy, cash flow has not yet joined the race
According to Goldman Sachs, the market is currently witnessing a large gap between recommendation and actual action. Many leading Wall Street financial institutions have publicly recommended increasing the proportion of gold to hedge against macroeconomic risks and preserve purchasing power.
However, cash flow from US investors has not yet shown a corresponding shift. Goldman Sachs believes that this gap could become the driving force for a new rise in gold prices if investors begin to adjust their asset allocation strategies.
Digital currency enters the game, ambition to "awaken" gold's monetary role
Not only traditional financial circles, the digital currency sector is also looking for ways to take advantage of the gold wave. Tether - the world's largest stablecoin issuing organization has just announced a new valuation unit for digital gold, aiming to bring gold closer to its role as a means of payment.
According to Tether, the biggest barrier that makes gold difficult to use in daily transactions is the overly complex valuation and payment by small portions of the ounce of gold. The new valuation unit is designed to subdivide gold in a more intuitive way, allowing for listing commodity and service prices in "gold numbers" instead of cumbersome decimal numbers.
This approach is seen as an effort to restore the historical role of gold as a means of exchange, not just stopping at its value shelter function.
In the context of gold and silver simultaneously reaching new peaks, fundamental factors such as prolonged inflation, interest rate instability, shelter demand and strong buying trends of central banks are still present.
According to Goldman Sachs, the current price of gold may only reflect a small part of the change in global asset allocation thinking. As US investors – the force holding the world's largest assets – truly enter, the upward momentum of the precious metal is likely to still have significant room.
