Gold Could Hit $5,000, Strategist Says. Why Others Are Worried About a Crash.

Investors normally don’t talk about the risks of a bubble forming in the asset that they’re buying to hedge against a different bubble, but gold’s extraordinary surge is starting to trigger uncomfortable conversations about the yellow metal’s bullish prospects.

Gold prices have gained more than 55% this year, blowing past the $3,000 an ounce mark in early spring and topping the $4,000 threshold for the first time on record last month. Gold was up another 3.3% to $4,108.60 in Monday trading, a new record high.

Myriad reasons have been cited for the surge, including the slumping U.S. dollar, soaring tech stocks that have concentrated broader market risks into a handful of megacap tech names, purchases by central banks seeking to diversify away from the dollar, and renewed inflation risks tied to ongoing tariff and trade disputes.

Central bank buying has also been significant, with China alone adding 39.2 tons to its overall holdings since it returned to the market in November of last year.

“Central banks’ appetite for gold is driven by concerns from countries about Russian-style sanctions on their foreign assets in the wake of decisions made by the U.S. and Europe to freeze Russian assets, as well as shifting strategies on currency reserves,” said ING commodities strategist Ewa Manthey.

“The pace of buying by central banks doubled following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”

Gold-backed ETFs , meanwhile, are attracting billions in new investments, with overall additions likely to have topped 100 tons over the three months ending in September. That’s more than triple the quarterly average over the past eight years.

The combination of forces is likely to drive more gains for gold in the months ahead, according to Société Générale’s commodity research team, headed by Mike Haigh.

“Gold’s ascent to $5000 seems increasingly inevitable,” Haigh wrote in a note published Monday, citing both strong ETF flows and renewed central bank purchases.

Haigh also notes that ETF flows are tracking a rise in SocGen’s U.S. uncertainty index, which is now pegged at more than three times the level it reached over the five months before last year’s presidential election win for President Donald Trump.

“We cannot imagine a situation where we return to pre-Trump index uncertainty normalcy over our forecast horizon, so ETF flows are a key component to our price forecasting,” Haigh said. His $500o price target is pegged for the end of 2026.

Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, has a different take, tied in part to what she sees as a way for governments to “challenge the dollar’s stranglehold on global money movements.”

Gold holdings, Shalett argues, can “improve collateralisation of their fiat currencies and/or cryptocurrencies in a world where currency markets undefined may be remade by digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins.”

The gold market’s mimicry of previous historic booms, however, has caught the attention of Bank of America analyst Paul Ciana, who cautioned in a note published last week that “prices have tended to pivot near round-number levels.”

Citing data showing “midway corrections” in long term bull markets for gold, Ciana sees the chances for a near-term pullback that “rhymes” with pullbacks of around 40% in the mid-1970s and 25% following the global financial crisis in 2008.

“This boom is about 10 years old, smaller in size than the 1970s and 2000s boom but nearly as old,” Ciana wrote. “This warrants caution into round number resistance at $4,000, or again later at $5,000.”

Gold isn’t likely a bubble. It’s hard for central banks to sell, and many of the countries encouraging its import, like China and India, also make it difficult for investors to move offshore.

But gold did lose around 60% of its value in the two decades that followed its 1970s boom, with bear markets following in 2008 and 2015.

This year’s really is still going strong, of course, but with gold’s advance tied to nearly all of the concerns currently gripping financial markets, maybe it’s worth asking if it’s being “all things to all people” is the best kind of hedge—or just another risky bet on rising prices.

The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.

This is not a ranking by follower count. Follower count is a measure of distribution, not of quality. What follows is a ranking by substance — credentials, accuracy, community depth, and the quality of what an audience actually learns from following these accounts. The distinction matters, because the Australians acting on this content are making real financial decisions with real money.

1- Queenie Tan – Corporate Authorised Representative; Co-Founder & Director, Invest With Queenie & Billroo

There are finance influencers who talk about building wealth, and there are those who document it in real time with receipts. Queenie Tan belongs firmly in the second category. Starting from a $400-per-week income, Tan built her net worth past $1 million while publishing the actual numbers — income, savings rate, investment decisions — for an audience of more than 400,000 across platforms.

She is a Corporate Authorised Representative, co-founder of the personal finance app Billroo, and the author of a book that has become a practical reference for young Australians navigating ETFs, superannuation and property. What separates her from the crowded field of money educators is precision: she does not talk in principles when she can talk in percentages.

2- Alan Kohler – Editor-in-Chief, Eureka Report; Editor-in-Chief, InvestSMART Group; ABC News finance presenter, host of Inside Business.

If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.

His coverage of RBA decisions, market movements and economic policy is cited by podcasters, journalists and fund managers alike. He is not chasing virality. He does not need to.

3- Aleks Nikolic – Corporate lawyer; host, Big Swinging Stocks podcast

Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.

Shame around debt. Fear around market volatility. The limiting beliefs that stop people acting on what they already know. In a space where confidence is routinely performed, her candour is a genuine competitive advantage.

4- Bryce Leske & Alec Renehan – Equity Mates Media

Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.

The longevity is the credential. Equity Mates has operated through multiple market cycles, a global pandemic, and a generational shift in how Australians engage with investing — and its audience has grown through all of it. When the hosts speak, their listeners know they have been paying attention for years.

5- The Lazy CEO – CEO & Founder, Showpo; Shark Tank Australia investor

The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.

Her content focuses on business finance and wealth building, and the active comment sections are the clearest possible evidence that her audience does not merely scroll past.

6- Tash Invests – Founder, Tash Lends; Forbes Australia 30 Under 30

Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.

Having bought her first property at twenty-two and grown her documented net worth past $1 million, she has become the primary reference point for young Australians trying to understand what building wealth on a moderate income genuinely looks like. The specificity is the product.

7- David Scutt – APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group

The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.

When he discusses foreign exchange movements or ASX dynamics, it is not because he has read about them. It is because he has traded them.

8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator

The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.

Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.

9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest

Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.

The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.

10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News

Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.

Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.

That combination, decades of editorial experience, an active broadcast presence, and a body of published work, is what makes her commentary carry weight beyond any single platform or post.

The common thread across this list is not follower count or platform presence. It is that each creator has built an audience willing to act on what they say, and for the Australians making financial decisions off the back of this content, that trust is the only thing that actually matters.

Gold Could Hit $5,000, Strategist Says. Why Others Are Worried About a Crash.

The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.