Gold Price Forecast: XAU/USD Guards $5,000 as Wall Street Maps Run Toward $6,100–$7,200

Gold Price Forecast: XAU/USD Holds $5,000 As Street Targets Shift Toward $6,100–$7,200

XAU/USD – Price Snapshot Around $5,050–$5,100 After a 0.8% Daily Drop

Spot Gold (XAU/USD) is trading in the $5,050–$5,100 zone on 12 February 2026 after slipping roughly 0.8% intraday. Spot quotes earlier were seen near $5,058 per ounce, with US futures following the same direction. Price action this week has been boxed inside a relatively tight band between $5,000 on the downside and resistance just under $5,100, showing consolidation rather than a blow-off top. The move lower today comes after a strong US labour print and a firmer dollar, not from any collapse in physical or ETF demand. Despite the pullback, XAU/USD is still up about 10% over the last month and roughly 70–75% versus a year ago, which underlines how extended the current cycle already is even before any next leg higher.

US Jobs Shock, Dollar Strength And Why Gold Dropped After the Data

The latest US jobs report printed roughly 130,000 new non-farm positions in January with unemployment around 4.3% and wage growth near 3.7% year on year. Those numbers are not recessionary; they tell the Fed it can delay aggressive rate cuts. As soon as those figures hit, the dollar index firmed and US yields nudged higher, which is exactly the environment where Gold tends to lose some shine. XAU/USD does not pay a coupon, so when the market removes some near-term easing from the curve, holding bullion becomes more expensive relative to Treasuries or cash. That repricing explains the roughly 0.8% slide in spot towards $5,050 and the softer futures curve today. The key point: the move is macro-driven and rate-expectation-driven, not a demand collapse.

Technical Structure – $5,000 Floor, $5,340 Objective And A Deep Cushion Down To $3,900

On the four-hour chart, XAU/USD is oscillating in a narrow consolidation band just under February’s peak around $5,100. Upside probes keep stalling below that level while dips into the $5,000–$5,010 zone are being defended. Momentum signals are mixed: MACD is showing mild downside pressure, but RSI around the mid-50s keeps a neutral-to-positive bias rather than a blow-off overbought profile. Price remains above the 100-period moving average on the intraday chart, which sits close to $5,000 and acts as first dynamic support. The current leg higher fits a C–D leg of a larger harmonic structure targeting the 78.6% retracement of the late-January sell-off near $5,340. That level is the first serious technical objective if bulls can clear $5,100. Below the market, the first real alarm only rings if XAU/USD closes decisively under the $5,000–$4,995 pocket. A break there exposes the early-February low around $4,655 and then the $4,650 region where the 50-day exponential moving average currently runs. Further down, prior breakout and congestion zones sit near $4,550 and $4,360, with the ultimate structural line in the sand around $3,900–$4,000 where the 200-day EMA and November 2025 lows cluster. That ladder of supports means Gold could theoretically fall 15–20% from current levels and still be inside a broader bullish regime, not in a confirmed bear market.

From $4,400 Flush To $5,608 Highs – Where XAU/USD Sits In the Current Cycle

The current setup makes no sense without the January spike and crash. Gold printed an all-time high near $5,608 per ounce at the end of January after a vertical rally driven by aggressive rate-cut bets, geopolitical hedging, and heavy central-bank interest. That peak was followed by a violent air-pocket: roughly $1,200 was wiped from the price in about three days, with spot briefly trading around $4,400. That kind of 20% intramonth drawdown is normal in the context of an over-extended secular bull market but it shook out weak late longs. Since then, the metal has staged a controlled comeback. Prices have reclaimed the $5,000 handle and have recovered more than 95% of the early-February damage. The important detail is how this rebound looks: grinding and non-parabolic rather than euphoric. That tells you that the market is rebuilding length from stronger hands, not simply re-inflating a bubble.

Fibonacci And Street Targets – Why $6,100–$6,300 Is Becoming the Central Gravity Point

Projecting from the October 2024 low through the January 2026 peak around $5,608 and using the $4,400 washout as the corrective anchor, Fibonacci extensions cluster a base target around $6,100 per ounce for the next major impulse. In an aggressive scenario, the same framework opens room towards roughly $7,200, which would be about 40–45% above current spot. Those are not just theoretical chart fantasies. Several large houses have now shifted their formal Gold forecasts into the $6,000 plus range. One major US bank is talking about $6,100–$6,300, another projects around $6,300 based on central banks potentially buying close to 800 tonnes in 2026, and others are clustered at $6,000–$6,200 as a reasonable medium-term objective. More extreme voices still throw around $10,000 or even higher in extreme currency-crisis scenarios, but for a realistic roadmap, the $6,100–$6,300 band now acts as the consensus magnet for this cycle. With XAU/USD around $5,050–$5,100, that implies upside of roughly 20–25% if the bullish path plays out.

Regional Picture – UAE And India Show How Local Markets Digest $5,000 Gold

The Gulf and Indian markets give a clean read on how retail flows respond at these levels. In the United Arab Emirates, the reference price today is about 597.50 dirhams per gram versus roughly 600.61 dirhams a day earlier. On a tola basis, benchmark prices slipped from around 7,005 dirhams to roughly 6,969 dirhams. That is a modest daily drop but it matters because these markets are extremely price-sensitive; even small moves trigger shifts in jewelry buying, scrap flows, and bar demand. In India, domestic futures have also eased in line with international moves. Contracts for April have slid below roughly ₹1.58 lakh per 10 grams, down around half a percent compared with the previous session. Local dealers are reporting softer jewelry volumes in tonnage terms because households are being forced to adjust to a radically higher rupee price, but investment-driven bar and coin demand remains engaged on dips. The message from both hubs is similar: $5,000 Gold weighs on impulse jewelry buying, but it has not killed strategic demand. Pullbacks of 1–2% are still being used to restock and re-enter.

China’s Bid – SGE Withdrawals, Record ETFs And Central Bank Accumulation

China’s contribution to the Gold tape is not noise; it is one of the core pillars of the current cycle. Withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange reached about 126 tonnes in January, slightly above the previous year and roughly 11 tonnes higher than December. That reflects two forces: strong bullion sales into the price strength and restocking by jewelers and manufacturers ahead of the Spring Festival. At the same time, Chinese gold ETFs had their strongest ever start to a year. Assets under management jumped by about 44 billion yuan in January to roughly 333 billion yuan. In tonnage, ETF holdings surged by 38 tonnes to a record near 286 tonnes. That jump was driven by the sharp rally in XAU/USD, lower local yields after targeted policy easing, and elevated geopolitical uncertainty in the region. There is also a structural shift: larger local institutions that barely touched gold ETFs in the past are now building positions. Even when prices dipped in early February, initial outflows from these products quickly stabilised and fresh interest emerged as Gold reclaimed the 5,000 dollar area. On top of that, the People’s Bank of China has now logged around 15 consecutive months of reported reserve buying. January saw another increase of about 1.2 tonnes, taking official holdings to roughly 2,308 tonnes, or close to 9.6% of total reserves. Central banks as a group have been an enormous bid for the metal; China’s steady accumulation at record prices underlines how strategic this asset has become in an environment of currency, rate, and sanctions risk.

Futures, Volatility And Positioning – How Traders Are Using the Range

Derivatives activity confirms that XAU/USD is in an active but not manic phase. On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, average daily volume in gold contracts was about 456 tonnes in January, up roughly 17% month on month and more than 70% above the five-year average. That combination of high price and high volume tells you volatility is being used, not feared. In the dollar futures space, open interest remains elevated but not at blow-off extremes, and the recent 0.8% intraday slide has triggered adjustment rather than panic liquidation. Many short-term strategies are now framed around the $5,000 handle as the pivot. Systematic approaches are buying dips into the $4,950–$5,000 area with stops below, and fading spikes into $5,100–$5,150 while the market stays capped under the late-January highs. As long as macro headlines and labour data continue to reprice the path of Fed cuts, that two-way tactical trading behaviour will persist.

Structural Demand – China’s Strong Start, Soft Imports And Recycling Liquidity

The World Gold Council’s China update shows a nuanced picture behind the headline price. On the one hand, January was one of the strongest starts to a year in decades: dollar gold benchmarks recorded the highest January levels since 1980, and local prices in renminbi posted their best opening month on record with gains near 19%. On the other hand, net imports into China for 2025 came in around 675 tonnes, roughly 41% lower than the prior year. That drop in net imports is not a signal of collapsing interest; it reflects high local prices, frequent domestic discounts and an increase in recycling flows as households swap old jewelry for new designs at much higher spot levels. Wholesale demand through the SGE remained solid, but elevated prices and the speed of the rally kept some players cautious about overstocking. The pattern is typical of a mature Gold market: when prices gallop, imports slow, domestic recycling ramps up, and ETFs plus central banks take a bigger share of the marginal demand.

Scenario Map For 2026 – Base, Bull And Bear Paths For XAU/USD

The forward map for Gold now clusters into three coherent paths. In the base case, US inflation continues to cool gradually, the Fed delays but does not cancel cuts, and geopolitical risk stays elevated but contained. Under that set-up, XAU/USD defends the $5,000 area, grinds back towards the $5,415–$5,608 high zone and then targets roughly $6,100 over the next 12–24 months, in line with the Fibonacci extension and the $6,000–$6,300 bank consensus. In the bullish case, US growth slows more visibly, inflation drops faster than feared, policy makers move earlier on rates, and central banks maintain or even increase their already-strong buying. Trade tensions and fiscal worries stay in the foreground. In that environment, spot could break cleanly through $5,600, convert that band into support and then accelerate toward $6,300. If central-bank and ETF demand remains as aggressive as recent projections suggest, an extension toward the $7,000–$7,200 zone enters play as an upper-tail outcome. In the bearish case, the labour market remains firm, inflation proves sticky, and the Fed is forced to keep policy restrictive longer than markets currently discount. The dollar would stay bid, real yields would grind higher, and Gold would likely lose the $5,000 level for a period. Prices could then test $4,650, revisit the early-February low region around $4,550, and in a deeper shakeout probe the $4,000 band where the 200-day EMA runs. Even under that scenario, the long-term secular story is only broken if XAU/USD spends time well below $3,900; until then, it looks like a deep correction inside a larger bull market.

Strategic View – XAU/USD Rated “Buy on Dips” With a Bullish Bias Toward $6,100

Putting the macro, flows, and technicals together, Gold (XAU/USD) remains a “buy on weakness” market, not a short into the hole. Spot around $5,050–$5,100 sits above a dense support cluster at $5,000–$4,995, $4,655, and $4,550, with further structural backing around $4,360 and $3,900–$4,000. At the same time, upside reference points are clearly defined: $5,340 as the harmonic target of the current leg, $5,415–$5,608 as the prior high zone, and then roughly $6,100 as the first extended objective, with potential to stretch towards $6,300–$7,200 if the bullish drivers stay in place. Central-bank accumulation, record Chinese ETF holdings, elevated futures activity, and a still-crowded Wall Street forecast band around $6,000 argue that dips into the $5,000–$4,700 corridor are more likely to attract capital than forced liquidation, as long as the Fed does not surprise with another full tightening cycle. The professional stance here is straightforward: classify Gold as bullish with volatility, treat pullbacks created by strong US data and dollar spikes as opportunities to scale in rather than reasons to abandon the trade, and anchor medium-term targets in the $6,100–$6,300 bracket while recognising that a disorderly macro shock could push an overshoot toward the $7,000 area.

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