As the price of gold drew near a milestone on Friday, one metal outshone it: silver, which climbed past $100 per troy ounce for the first time in history.
Most-active silver futures settled at $101.33, rising 5.2% to mark a record high. The price of gold settled up 1.4% at $4,979.70, just a touch below the $5,000 level, but marking the best weekly performance since March 2020.
Platinum also extended its blistering rally. It settled at a record $2,741.30, up 6.4%.
The gains cap an impressive start to the year for precious metals. So far in 2026, gold has risen by 15%, platinum by 32%, and silver by 43%, far outpacing the S&P 500, with a 1.2% gain.
U.S.-Europe tensions, strong demand from investors, and lingering concerns over Federal Reserve independence have all contributed to the surge in precious-metals prices. Investors have reacted to increasing uncertainty by piling into haven assets as they look to limit the risk of losses in their portfolios.
But other factors have driven precious metals higher, too. Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities strategist at UBS, noted that “lower U.S. interest rates (both real and nominal), a weaker U.S. dollar in the first half of the year and continued fiscal deficits in major economies should sustain demand.”
That sentiment has been echoed by other analysts. Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs raised its year-end 2026 price target for gold to $5,400 per ounce.
“We assume private sector diversification buyers, whose purchases hedge global policy risks and have driven the upside surprise to our price forecast, don’t liquidate their gold holdings in 2026, effectively lifting the starting point of our price forecast,” the bank said in a note at the time.
While some bulls have styled Bitcoin as a different type of haven asset, this argument is gradually losing credibility. It turns out that prices of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, tend to fluctuate more during periods of instability.
The price of the world’s largest crypto by market capitalization has trended downward since the start of January. For now, it seems investors are opting for traditional haven assets instead.