2025 marked a structural shift, not a speculative peak - World Gold Council’s Joe Cavatoni
Gold’s record-breaking run in 2025 was not a speculative event. According to the World Gold Council, it was a year that “anchored the case for gold” across central banks, investors, and consumers alike — a structural reset that continues to reverberate through markets in early 2026.
The WGC publishes its fourth-quarter and year-end Gold Demand Trends report on Thursday. According to the data, global demand for physical gold surpassed 5,000 tonnes for the first time on record last year, with the precious metal setting 53 new all-time highs. Robust demand drove the annual average price to $3,431 an ounce, up 44% year over year.
“If you didn’t understand gold before, 2025 explained it to you,” said Joseph Cavatoni, senior market strategist at the World Gold Council, in an interview with
Cavatoni stressed that focusing on price alone misses the more important shift now underway. He said the most meaningful change he is seeing among institutional investors is not fear of missing out, but a reassessment of gold’s role within portfolios.
“For years the question was, ‘Did I miss the trade?’” he said. “That’s no longer the right question. The right question is: what role does gold play in my portfolio now?”
That reframing is showing up clearly in the data. Investment demand surged 84% in 2025 to a record 2,175 tonnes, driven primarily by inflows into gold-backed exchange-traded funds of 801 tonnes — the second-strongest year on record — alongside a 12-year high in bar and coin demand.
Unlike momentum traders, ETF allocators are making strategic decisions based on diversification, correlation, and long-term portfolio resilience.
ETF providers don’t buy bounces,” Cavatoni said. “They ask whether the asset works in the portfolio, whether it’s near fair value, and whether they should be overweight or underweight right now.”$BTC
