Gold $1,300 below January's high changes what jewellers make
Goldman Sachs forecasts $4,900 an ounce by year end and ING $4,600, JCK reports. McKinsey's ConsumerWise survey found 43% of consumers expect to spend less on jewellery over the next three months.
By The Metals Desk
What changed
Design starts at the price. JCK reports that manufacturers now begin from where a retailer wants a piece to land and work back to weight and construction. Gold sits about $1,300 under its January high.
What it means
- If you buy for the holiday: Two of the forecasts JCK collected sit above this morning's spot, at $4,900 and $4,600.
- If you manufacture: Metal is roughly three-quarters of the ticket on a plain 14-carat chain, so weight is the lever with room in it.
- What this is not: A forecast from the Metals Desk. Every year-end number here belongs to a named bank and is reported as theirs.
Key figures
| Gold below its January high, as JCK puts it | $1,300 |
|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs year-end forecast | $4,900 |
| ING year-end forecast | $4,600 |
| Consumers expecting to spend less on jewellerynext three months, McKinsey | 43% |
Source: JCK, 23 September 2026 · gold's own level read on Carat Capital's tape at 06:04 ET 24 September 2026
Weight and construction move first
Design runs backwards. Clyde Duneier's chief executive told JCK that weight, construction and retail price are settled before a piece takes shape. The manufacturer is fourth-generation.
Thinner is refused. The same executive said the firm prefers re-engineering a piece to lowering quality to hit a price. No cost figure was given for either route.
| Piece | Weight | Price | Gold in it | Metal share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miami open-link chain, 5.5 mm, 24 in | 19.8 g | $2,100 | $1,584 | 75% |
| Miami Cuban link, 3.6 mm, 20 in | 7.3 g | $790 | $584 | 74% |
| Necklace, 0.70 ct diamonds, 1.75 ct rubies | 9.9 g | $4,500 | $792 | 18% |
| Ring, 9.50 ct citrine, 0.15 ct diamonds | 12.6 g | $3,386 | $1,008 | 30% |
Notes on this table
Carat Capital's arithmetic. the last two columns are Carat Capital's own and are not JCK's. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, so $4,254.50 an ounce is $136.79 a gram of fine gold; 14-carat is 14/24, or 58.5% fine, giving $80.02 of gold a gram. Multiply by the weight JCK publishes: 19.8 × 80.02 = $1,584; 7.3 × 80.02 = $584; 9.9 × 80.02 = $792; 12.6 × 80.02 = $1,008. The share is that figure over the published price.
What it excludes. the last two rows carry diamonds, rubies and citrine whose value is not in the gold column, so their metal share is a floor on the stone-and-labour content rather than a margin. Refining loss, findings, labour and margin are not modelled anywhere.
Not a valuation. these are retail asking prices on four named pieces, not a scrap or trade-in basis.
Metal is most of the ticket
The arithmetic is blunt. At $4,254.50 an ounce, fine gold costs $136.79 a gram, and 14-carat is 58.5% fine. That puts $80.02 of gold into each gram sold.
Three-quarters is metal. The 19.8-gram chain carries about $1,584 of gold against its $2,100 ticket, or 75%. The smaller Cuban link works out at 74%.
Volatility costs more than level
The complaint is movement. A New York retailer told JCK the problem is fluctuation rather than the level. He blamed the price, then corrected himself: "The prices are not stable."
Demand is already softer. McKinsey's ConsumerWise survey found 43% of consumers expect to spend less on jewellery in the next three months, JCK reports.
What to watch
- 31 December 2026The horizon on both the Goldman Sachs and ING forecasts named here, against a press-time $4,254.50.
- Each 05:00 ETCarat Capital's opening gold mark, against which the gap to the January high is measured.
- ~20 October 2026Swiss customs monthly gold trade figures, the next dated flow reading on the metal.
The story so far
Go deeper
What would change this call
A move back toward the January high. The design argument reported here rests on gold being far enough below its high, and moving enough, to force a redesign; a stable ounce would remove the second half of it. The metal-share arithmetic would move with spot on any day, in either direction.
Karat is a fraction, and grams do the work
Fourteen-carat gold is 14 parts in 24, or 58.5% fine by weight, the rest being alloy of much lower value. A jeweller's cost therefore tracks grams of fine gold rather than the piece's gross weight, and a troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, not the 28.35 of an avoirdupois ounce. Those two conversions are the whole of the arithmetic in the table here. They are also why a redesign that removes a gram saves about $80 at this morning's spot, and why the same redesign on a 10-carat piece would save about $57.
Method
JCK's article was fetched directly, 122,076 bytes, and read as raw markup rather than through a summariser, because a summarised fetch has produced figures absent from the page before. Its own body carries the byline 'By Sam Cooley | September 23, 2026', which is the date used here rather than the feed wrapper's. Every figure attributed to JCK was confirmed in those bytes: the $1,300 gap, the nearly $5,600 January high, Goldman Sachs at $4,900, ING at $4,600, the McKinsey ConsumerWise 43%, and the four priced pieces with their weights. The Goldman Sachs and ING figures are JCK's reporting of those banks and neither bank's own publication was opened, so they are attributed to JCK throughout rather than cited as bank research. The McKinsey survey is likewise carried as JCK reports it; McKinsey's own ConsumerWise release was not fetched and is not cited. JCK's $1,300 is that outlet's rounding against its own reading of spot on 23 September; measured instead against this paper's press-time mark of $4,254.50 the gap to a $5,600 high is about $1,345, which is why the figure is printed as JCK puts it rather than as a subtraction of this desk's own. The gold content in the table is computed from this paper's own written-back tape mark for 24 September and from no other source. The quote is one, at five words, counted before filing. Archive searched by entity before filing: 'Goldman' returns nothing, '4,900' returns two older articles on unrelated subjects, and no prior Carat Capital article carries this JCK piece.