Even As Central Banks Bought Gold, The Market Analysts Remained Bearish

* This goes to the list of "things that are obvious in hindsight"

In 2014 Forbes published an opinion saying that increased gold buying by Central Bank of Russia (CBR) isn't an indicator of positive price pressures for gold.

Gold's price has more than quadrupled since then, going from ≈$1600/oz in November 2014 to ≈$4600/oz as of January 19th 2026.

The article frames the purchase as "forced", when commenting the fact that CBR decided to increase the share of gold in the "gold and foreign exchange reserve assets" item in their balance sheet. It is not by chance that this central bank accounting item explicitly includes "gold" in its name.

The Forbes article also seems to assume that miner profit margins don't spread cross-border.

Another thing that the article omits is that a central bank can buy gold without expanding the base monetary base (i.e. "printing" new currency), for example by swapping FX reserves for gold via a single or multi-leg sale.