Silver and gold are the big winners as investors look for safety following the U.S. intervention in Venezuela

By Vivien Lou Chen

Traders put aside bubble concerns and turned to precious metals as safe havens on Monday

Precious metals jumped on Monday as investors searched for safe havens.

Gold and silver emerged as the big winners of flight-to-safety trades by investors on Monday following the U.S. intervention in Venezuela - helping to alleviate concerns about their steep price climbs in 2025 and whether a correction might be in store for the new year.

Investors flocked to precious metals as part of a longer-term trend of seeking alternatives to the U.S. dollar and U.S. government debt following periods of American military action. Gold for February delivery (GC00) (GCG26) spiked almost 3% to roughly $4,450 an ounce on Monday, following a more than 60% surge in prices last year. Silver (SI00) for delivery next month (SIG26) rose 6.6% to $75.50 an ounce after prices more than doubled in 2025.

Meanwhile, Treasurys, another well-known haven, didn't get much of a boost, with the 2-year note BX:TMUBMUSD02Y through the 30-year bond BX:TMUBMUSD30Y rallying only modestly on the day, pushing yields slightly lower. (Bond prices and yields move in the opposite direction.) The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, a popular gauge of the greenback's performance against a basket of six other currencies, fell 0.1%, erasing a morning advance.

As for why precious metals were Monday's biggest winners, Tom Nakamura, head of fixed income and currencies at AGF Investments in Toronto, said: "When we think about how the U.S. has flexed its power over the past 11 years in terms of whether it is sanctions or interventions, there's been concern about the world's reliance on the U.S. dollar. If those concerns continue to grow, there will be a growing part of the market that will look to alternatives to the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasurys."

However, "these processes are very long term" and could take years or perhaps decades, he noted in a phone interview.

For a bigger flight-to-safety move to take hold in the bond market, investors would either need to see resistance from allies of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, which doesn't appear to be happening, or "an expansion of these kinds of interventions into other countries that would be harder to justify and draw international scrutiny," Nakamura added.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump, speaking just hours after Maduro was plucked from power during a military operation, said the U.S. would "run" the South American country at least temporarily and tap its vast oil reserves. Shares of U.S. oil-sector companies jumped on Monday as all three major stock indexes DJIA SPX COMP closed higher, while oil prices (CL00) (CL.1) also advanced.

See also: Chevron's stock jumps 4%. Analysts are saying this about big oil companies after Maduro's capture.

Market participants have tended to shrug off geopolitical turmoil, such as disruptions in the Middle East in the past few years that included escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. Historical comparisons to the Venezuela situation are hard to find because the U.S.'s goal appears to be to get American oil companies to ramp up production there, according to Nakamura. "If the plan is mostly successful, we should end up with greater production coming out of Venezuela."

Nakamura, whose firm had almost $43.9 billion (CAD $60.4 billion) in assets under management and fee-earning assets as of Nov. 30, added: "Markets are not seeing this as a big risk at all and, if anything, there's a bit of a Treasury rally on the prospects of easing inflation pressures from lower energy prices over time."

-Vivien Lou Chen

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01-05-26 1603ET