Gold, Silver Hit Record Highs Amid Growing Geopolitical Tensions
By Ronnie Harui
Prices of gold and silver climbed to record highs in Asia on Monday, amid growing geopolitical tensions that typically bolster the safe-haven appeal of precious metals.
The U.S. Coast Guard is pursuing another oil tanker involved in transporting oil from Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing three U.S. officials. The move comes shortly after the U.S. apprehended an oil tanker that wasn't on its sanctions list and after President Trump in a social-media post on Tuesday ordered a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned tankers going into and out of Venezuela.
Also, U.S. forces carried out attacks on more than 70 targets in Syria on Friday, as the Trump administration retaliated against an ambush that recently killed three Americans. Also, Jordanian forces joined in the strikes, which targeted Islamic State infrastructure and weapons sites.
"Gold is driven by a range of structural and cyclical supports--including a Fed easing cycle, persistent central-bank demand, and elevated geopolitical and policy uncertainty," Christopher Wong, an FX strategist at OCBC's Global Markets Research, said in a report.
Spot gold rose 1.5% to $4,404.77 a troy ounce after touching a record high of $4,409.50 an ounce earlier Monday, according to ICE data. Spot silver climbed 2.8% to $69.06 an ounce after hitting a high of $69.45 an ounce earlier in the session, the data showed.
Precious metal prices also likely got a boost from expectations for more central-bank purchases and further interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
"We expect the same two drivers--structurally high central bank demand and cyclical support from Fed cuts--to lift the gold price further to" $4,900 an ounce by December 2026, Goldman Sachs's Commodities Research team said in a research report. "We thus continue to recommend long exposure in gold," the team added.
Write to Ronnie Harui at ronnie.harui@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 22, 2025 01:57 ET (06:57 GMT)
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