Is it too late to join the booming ASX gold rush?

Have you been keeping an eye on the resurgent ASX gold rush?

Or perhaps you've already joined in.

If you did catch the fast-spreading gold fever and bought S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) gold shares five days ago, you should be sitting on some very satisfying gains today.

Here's what I mean.

Over the past five days, the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD) – which also contains some smaller gold miners outside of the ASX 200 – has gained a whopping 11.9%.

For some context, the ASX 200 is up 0.8% over that same period.

With the gold rush moving at full speed ahead, here's how these leading ASX 200 gold stocks have performed over the past five days:

• Northern Star Resources Ltd (ASX: NST) shares are up 11.5%
• Newmont Corp (ASX: NEM) shares are up 12.5%
• De Grey Mining Ltd (ASX: DEG) shares are up 8.8%
• Ramelius Resources Ltd (ASX: RMS) shares are up 17.0%
• Gold Road Resources Ltd (ASX: GOR) shares are up 12.0%
• Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX: EVN) shares are up 13.0%
• Bellevue Gold Ltd (ASX: BGL) shares are up 7.6%

Boom!

Investors have been piling into the Aussie gold producers as the price of the yellow metal has rocketed to new all-time highs (in US dollar terms).

Bullion hit a new peak of US$2,141.79 per ounce. That saw the gold price up almost 18% from the recent lows of US$1,820 per ounce on 5 October.

At the time of writing, gold is trading for US$2,127.51 per ounce.

Does the ASX gold rush have further to run?

Those are some impressive one-week gains for the big gold miners, to be sure.

The question now is, is it too late to join the booming ASX gold rush?

The answer is, very likely not.

The record gold price has been achieved in part from gold's haven status in these times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

Bullion has also been supported by near-record levels of purchases from central banks.

And then there's the growing confidence that most of the world's top economies, including the US and Australia, will begin cutting interest rates later this year as inflation returns to their target levels. Gold, which pays no yield, tends to perform better in a falling interest rate environment.

In good news for ASX gold shares, Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING Groep, believes the newly minted record-high gold price will soon be surpassed.

According to Manthey (quoted by Bloomberg):

Speculation over a Fed rates pivot and continued geopolitical tensions keep gold shining. We expect gold prices to trade higher this year as safe-haven demand continues to be supportive amid geopolitical uncertainty with ongoing wars and the upcoming US election.

Three Australian gold miners tipped for more big gains

If the gold rush continues apace, as many analysts expect, it should benefit all of the Aussie gold producers.

Macquarie last month came out with a bullish assessment for three leading ASX 200 gold stocks.

The broker has an outperform rating on Evolution Mining shares with a $3.80 price target. That represents a 19% potential upside from current levels.

Macquarie also has an outperform rating on Northern Star shares with a price target of $16.00. That's almost 14% above the current share price.

And the third ASX 200 gold stock Macquarie believes is set for more outperformance is Newmont. The broker's $67.00 price target represents a potential upside of 30% from current levels.