Spot gold was sitting at around $1370/oz this morning.

"Gold has likely entered the early stages of the next bull-run," UBS declared yesterday.

UBS upgraded its average price for 2016 to $1280/oz from $1225, implying an average price of $1340/oz for the current half.

The short-term target has been lifted from $1250/oz to $1400/oz.

"We expect the next leg to be driven by an extension of the trend of strategic portfolio allocation into gold from a diverse set of investors," UBS said.

"This trend should now deepen, attracting more participants and encouraging those who have been hesitating to get more involved. Relatively orderly retracements, which have typically been shallow and brief indicates strong buying interest.

"This suggests that gold's floor is likely higher now given an even stronger fundamental argument for holding gold."

UBS forecasts average prices of $1400/oz next year, $1450/oz in 2018, $1475/oz in 2019 and $1500/oz in 2020.

Gold in Australian dollar terms is also flying.

The spot price is currently at around $A1827/oz after peaking at $1847/oz yesterday on a slightly weaker dollar.

Gold equities are doing so well it's hard to keep up with new all-time highs.

The market's second-largest producer Evolution Mining hit a fresh record high of $3.05 after first rising over $3 briefly yesterday, while Northern Star Resources is marching towards $6, its shares peaking at a new high of $5.87 this morning.

Regis Resources today broke through the $4 mark for the first time since late 2013, while developer Dacian Gold reached a new high of $3.52, despite only cracking the $1 threshold in February.

Long-time gold bull, Paradigm Securities' Barry Dawes, expects prices to continue to rise.

"The Australian dollar gold price is doing some wonderful things for gold producers here in Australia where cash operating costs are often under $1000/oz," he said this week. 

"This is a margin of A$800/oz. For 100,000ozpa this is $80 million pre-tax.

"For Northern Star this is $560 million. For Evolution it's $660 million. Newcrest $2 billion. For Blackham at a $140 million market cap it is $80 million per annum from sometime this quarter."