Key Takeaways
- The price of gold traded at new record highs this morning after surpassing $5,000 per ounce for the first time over the weekend.
- The precious metal’s recent rise reflects investor demand for hedges amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty, as other precious metals have also climbed in recent months.
Gold finally hit the milestone traders have been waiting for.
The spot price of the precious metal over the weekend topped $5,000 per troy ounce for the first time, and earlier today reached as high as $5,115. The moves came as U.S. stocks ticked higher to start the week. (Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.)
Why This Matters to Investors
Investor appetite for gold, which is considered a safe haven during times of volatility, continues to be strong. The price of the gold has nearly doubled over the past year as many investors have turned to the precious metal as a store of value amid economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
The seeming resolution, or at least a path toward one, of affairs involving the U.S., Greenland and mainland Europe appeared last week to have marked a cooling of geopolitical fears. Some analysts though, have said a broader issue—a possible realignment of the relationship between the U.S. and many of its allies and trading partners—remains in play. Fresh concerns about the possibility of another U.S. government shutdown are also factoring into investor sentiment today.
That’s contributed to demand for gold, long seen as a hedge against many types of uncertainty. Analysts and investors were targeting higher prices for gold, already up substantially this year, before $5,000 even hit. Some were even looking toward $6,000. (Gold first touched $4,000 in early October.)
Oppenheimer attributed gold’s rally to emerging market central bank purchases “made to hedge currencies against the U.S. dollar,” as well as the expectation of lower interest rates that can make non-interest-paying assets, like good, look more attractive.
“Private investor and consumer concerns about the stickiness in inflation along with expectations for two Fed rate cuts this year have also supported the price of the metal into 2026,” John Stoltzfus, the firm’s chief investment strategist, wrote Sunday.
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Gold was recently up 2% to $5,100 an ounce. Other precious metals also rose, with silver surging 6% to around $110 per ounce and platinum gaining 1.5% to $2,840.
The precious metal is likely to maintain its draw, according to analysts. Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com, said that $5,000 isn’t just a big round number but also, from a technical perspective, a “psychological pull for buyers.”
The recent rush into gold as well as base metals and rare earth minerals have driven up prices in several emerging markets ETFs that have heavy weightings in metal industries, Ed and David Yardeni of Yardeni Research wrote Sunday.
Yardeni didn’t name names, but a scan of big emerging-markets and metals-specific ETFs geographically tilted toward such countries illustrated the impact of the metals rally. The iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG), for example, with a standard allocation to the material sector, has risen more than 8% year-to-date, compared to the thematic VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF’s (REMX) 34% gain.
“This is all happening because rising geopolitical tensions are driving a military arms race, and defense companies need metals to increase their output,” according to Yardeni. The firm has a yearend price target of $6,000 on gold, and sees prices hitting $10,000 by the end of 2029.
Bitcoin, which lately has traded more like a risk asset than a hedge, was at $87,400, down from an overnight high of $88,200.
This article has been updated since it was first published to add fresh data and context.