Precious collection

Gold and silver witnessed a remarkable year amid excellent safe-haven buying

- Sachin Dabhade

Precious metals witnessed a wild ride in 2025, witnessing consistent gains and marking one of the best annual performances historically. Both gold and silver hit a series of record highs with gains intensifying in last few weeks of the year as continued safe-haven demand clubbed with weakness in the US dollar and flareups in geopolitical worries taking gold well above the US$4500 per ounce.

Gold has been upbeat in recent years and has been marching up constantly after it broke above precious record highs in February 2024. Gold rallied nearly 70% in global markets in 2025, with December leading a wild spurt of more than 7%. It has recently been supported after an escalation in tensions between the US and Venezuela. The yellow metal broke above US$4500 per ounce for the first time following the recent US detentions of Venezuelan vessels.

Over last few months, rising expectations of further interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve triggered another forceful rise in the metal in tune with silver and copper. The US Dollar index dipped to a near-three-month low around end December-25, marking an almost 10% correction for the year. The US Fed has reduced the target range for federal funds rate by around 100 basis points (bps) between September-December 2025. The range for borrowing costs currently stands around a three-year low of 3.50 to 3.75%.