Upward trend

Precious metals rally: silver and platinum at all-time highs, gold close to record highs

Rally extended to all precious metals. Supported by a boom in investment and in the case of platinum also the EU's partial retreat from electric cars

by Sissi Bellomo

17 December 2025

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Gold again close to an all-time high, silver that continues to run, even leaving behind the $65 an ounce threshold for the first time. And platinum is flying well above USD 1,900, at the highest level since 2008, driven by the European Union's partial reverse gear on electric mobility: cars with combustion engines are equipped with catalytic converters and this is the biggest source of demand for the metal.

Precious metals continue to remain in the spotlight in this last part of 2025: a year of truly exceptional performances, destined, according to many analysts, to continue into 2026. The absolute protagonist for the past few months has been silver, whose value has more than doubled since the beginning of the year: +128% the rise until Wednesday 17 when it reached a peak of 66.52 dollars on the London spot market.

The platinum and gold trend

Among the performance champions was platinum, which also appreciated by more than 100 per cent over the same period (peaking Wednesday at $1,935), while palladium, also used in catalysts, gained about 80 per cent in 2025 and on Wednesday touched two-month highs ($1,652/ounce).

And then there is gold, which appreciated by 'only' 65% in 2025, but which has been running for more than three years and does not cease to amaze: the rally has regained momentum and quotations on Wednesday 17 went as high as USD 4,346.20 on the British marketplace, a few dozen dollars away from the historical record, which the ingot has updated fifty times this year.

The last was in October, when it had reached $4,381 an ounce. Then there was a sharp correction, even below $4,000, followed by a stabilisation phase around $4,200. Finally the recovery began, which in the last week - after the Federal Reserve's monetary committee meeting - gained strength.

The effects of Fed decisions

That the US central bank would cut interest rates by 25 basis points was a foregone conclusion. But it also surprisingly initiated a 40 billion per month short-term securities purchase plan, something that comes close to Quantitative easing. And the market is confident of a further easing of monetary policy in the coming months, when among other things at the Fed summit there will be a handover from Jerome Powell to one of Donald Trump's favourite 'doves', be it Kevin Hassett rather than Kevin Walsh.

The dollar has weakened again in recent days and Treasuries yields are on the rise, partly as a result of the latest disappointing US employment data. And all this plays in gold's favour: several analysts (including those of JP Morgan and Bank of America) predict that bullion will reach $5,000 an ounce by the end of 2026.

Investors seem to be tired of Bitcoin, but not of precious metals, on which they are stepping up their 'bets', encouraged by the geopolitical tensions that continue to flare up around the world.

The escalation in Venezuela

If markets are now hoping for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, there is however an alarming escalation in Venezuela, where Trump has deployed a record number of warships and has ordered the blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers approaching the country: the US has already stormed one last week, seizing its cargo of crude oil, to the almost total indifference of the oil markets (the price of a barrel has actually fallen to four-year lows on Tuesday 16, although it recovered about 2 per cent in the following session).

Purchases of gold ETFs have also resumed strongly and net flows - with a couple of weeks to go before the end of the year - are close to 15 million ounces, the highest since 2019 and more than enough to make up for the redemptions of the past three years, notes Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank. Meanwhile, silver ETFs have reached total assets in excess of 850 million ounces, a three-and-a-half-year high, up around 20 per cent since the start of the year.

Sissi Bellomocaposervizio
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Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: italiano, inglese, francese, spagnolo
Argomenti: commodities, oil, gas, energia, agribusiness, mercati, Opec
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