There seems to be no holding back the gold price this year.

In fact, you'd have to go back almost 40 years, to the September quarter in 1986, to find a three-month period where bullion has performed better.

Just what kind of gains are we talking about here?

Well, on 1 January, the gold price stood at US$2,625 per ounce. At the end of the quarter, on 31 March, that same ounce was fetching US$3,124, for a quarterly gain of 19.0%. The yellow metal has retraced a touch since then, currently trading for US$3,114 per ounce.

As you'd expect, that's been a boon for ASX gold stocks.

To put their blistering performance in 2025 in some perspective, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 3.9% year to date. As for the Aussie gold miners, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD) has rocketed 28.3% over this same time.

Investors in gold exchange traded funds (ETFs), like ETFS Metal Securities Australia Limited (ASX: GOLD), should also be sitting pretty.

ETFs like GOLD aim to track the price movements in physical gold in Aussie dollars, currently at AU$4,941 per ounce.

The ASX ETF is up 18.0% year to date.

But with the gold price having rocketed 38% over the past 12 months already, can the rally keep going?

What's next for the gold price?

Amid ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, global conflicts, and plenty of central bank bullion buying, the outlook for further gains in the gold price – and for ASX gold stocks like Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) and Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN) – looks promising.

According to Collins St Asset Management's Michael Goldberg (quoted by The Australian Financial Review):

I don't think the general market has cottoned on to this, but we're hopeful this is just the start of a genuine gold bull run that we haven't seen for nearly 15 years. The past couple of gold bull markets lasted about 10 years and I reckon we're only three to four years into this one.

So, how high might the gold price go in 2025?

Well, a number of prominent brokers expect further gains ahead.

With a year end forecast of US$3,300 per ounce, the analysts at Goldman Sachs are among the more conservative.

Macquarie is more bullish. Its analysts forecast gold could hit US$3,500 per ounce this year, representing a gain of more than 12% from current levels.

And Morgan Stanley's forecast falls in the middle, at US$3,400 per ounce.

Any of these gold price forecasts should come as great news to the ASX gold miners, which could see their margins balloon.

Northern Star, for example, is forecasting an FY 2025 all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of AU$1,850 to AU$2,100 per ounce for its full-year gold production.

Remember, the yellow metal is already trading for AU$4,941 per ounce today.