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Long-time market investors have always tended to chuckle at the “gold-bugs” as they tend to stay positive on the precious metals all the time. Not many are laughing now, as the spot price has broken out to six-year highs, and investors late to the party have been bidding up the top companies in the sector to 52-week highs. One thing is for sure: the gold trade is on, and it makes sense to add some shares now.

In a new Deutsche Bank research report, the firm’s precious metals team raises its price target for gold, as well as for three top stocks the firm covers and rates at Buy.

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The report noted these three top reasons for increasing the targets:

1. We have increased our gold and silver price forecasts for the next six quarters to reach a level of $1,575/ounce based on our updated view of the macro, including what we see as the primary drivers of gold: real interest rates, the equity risk premium, the US dollar, and central bank purchases;
2. We have shown macro scenarios that could result in gold going above $1,700/ounce.
3. We have provided updated forecasts for each of our companies under coverage following recent results and management conference calls.

The following three picks make sense for growth accounts looking to hedge risk some.

Barrick Gold

This is one of the top companies in the industry, and its shares broke out of a long trading range recently. Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: GOLD) and Randgold Resources completed their merger on January 1, 2019. This marriage has created the world’s largest gold company in terms of production, reserves and market capitalization.

The company posted solid second-quarter earnings earlier this week. Adjusted earnings and revenue met Wall Street’s expectations, and the company said it expects full-year gold production in the upper end of its prior outlook. Wall Street was also positive on the firm’s reduction of debt, which was down to $5.8 billion in the second quarter from $6.4 billion in the same period of last year.

The Deutsche Bank team said this in regards to the company:

We believe Barrick Gold is well positioned to benefit from a favorable gold pricing environment. Management has now completed the early section of the integration process with Randgold. We continue to like the company on cost reductions, potential divestment’s (could be within the next quarter), and synergies/optimization across the portfolio, with the Nevada JV with Newmont Goldcorp. Barrick’s management has identified Kalgoorlie as a mine to be divested, and we believe Tongon, Lumwana, and the Massawa projects could be other assets that are non-core in the near-to-medium term.

Other analysts see the stock headed higher as well.

Barrick Gold pays investors a small 0.88% dividend. The Deutsche Bank price target for the shares is $20, which compares to the Wall Street consensus figure last seen at $17.75. The stock closed Thursday’s trading at $18.39 a share.

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