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Gold has paused for breath after a powerful run — but according to one of India's largest brokerages, the rally is not over. It is merely deferred. Motilal Oswal Financial Services says domestic gold could climb to between ₹1.60 lakh and ₹1.68 lakh per 10 grams over the next six to twelve months, a call that would put the yellow metal far above its recent highs if it comes true. The key word is "could": this is a forecast, not a guarantee, and the path to that target runs through some formidable headwinds.
What Motilal Oswal actually forecast
According to reports from The Economic Times, the brokerage's report — titled "Gold's Rally: Deferred, Not Derailed" and published on 5–6 November — sets out a staged view of where prices could go. In the short term, it sees gold reaching around ₹1.48 lakh per 10 grams. Over six to twelve months, the target range rises to ₹1.60–1.68 lakh. And for buyers waiting for a better entry point, it identifies an accumulation zone around ₹1.35 lakh — a level at which it would advise buying on dips. All of these domestic figures assume the rupee trades at around 96 to the US dollar.
The international targets tell the same story in dollars. Motilal Oswal sees gold at $4,500–4,700 an ounce over the medium term, with a short-term target of $4,200 and an accumulation zone of $3,800–3,900 an ounce. The message is consistent across both sets of numbers: near-term caution, medium-term optimism, and a clear preference for buying weakness rather than chasing strength.
Why analysts think gold keeps climbing
The brokerage's case rests on three drivers that have powered gold all year. The first is sustained investment demand: investors have been pouring money into gold-backed products as a hedge against uncertainty, and that flow has not reversed. The second is central-bank buying, which has continued at a strong pace as central banks around the world diversify their reserves away from the dollar. The third is global uncertainty itself — geopolitical tensions, trade friction and policy unpredictability all push investors toward assets that hold their value when everything else wobbles.
That logic also explains why the brokerage is relaxed about the current pause. As reported by the Free Press Journal, Motilal Oswal expects gold and silver prices to remain strong despite market volatility in 2026, and recommends buying on dips — in other words, treating pullbacks as opportunities rather than warnings. The "deferred, not derailed" framing is deliberate: the rally has been interrupted, not ended.
What could hold it back
But the same report is candid about the headwinds, and they are substantial. US Federal Reserve interest rates sit at 3.75–4%, a strong dollar makes gold more expensive for buyers in other currencies, and elevated bond yields give investors a competing place to park their money that actually pays them interest — something gold never does. Any of these could strengthen further and keep gold range-bound for longer than the brokerage expects.
That is why the forecast deserves to be read carefully rather than celebrated. A target of ₹1.68 lakh is a scenario built on assumptions — about the rupee, about central-bank demand, about the direction of US rates — and if those assumptions shift, so does the target. The report itself is only two days old, but in gold markets two days is a long time, and the brokerage's own short-term target of ₹1.48 lakh is well below the headline number. Investors who treat the ₹1.68 lakh figure as a promise rather than a possibility are making exactly the mistake the report's cautious tone warns against.
For Indian buyers, the practical takeaway is narrower than the headline suggests. If the forecast is right, gold has further to run — but the recommended strategy is not to rush in at any price. It is to wait for dips toward the ₹1.35 lakh accumulation zone, and to treat gold as one part of a diversified portfolio rather than a one-way bet. The metal's appeal has always been as insurance against disorder, and disorder is not in short supply: the sharp selloff in US equities shows how quickly risk appetite can vanish, and political upheaval in Paraguay is a reminder that instability is not confined to any one region. Gold could indeed glitter at ₹1.68 lakh within a year — but only if the forces that have lifted it so far keep working in its favour, and only for investors patient enough to buy the dips along the way.