NEW YORK: Metals extended their dramatic start to the year – with gold, silver, copper and tin all hitting record highs – and investors piling into the commodities as a red-hot alternative to more traditional assets.
Frenzied buying in China across multiple metals has stoked the recent moves while investors have been seeking safe havens amid geopolitical flashpoints and the Trump administration’s attacks on the US Federal Reserve.
Silver topped US$93 an ounce for the first time after White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf said President Donald Trump signed action to secure national supply of rare earths as a result of a Section 232 trade investigation.
Gold notched another all-time peak. Tin was the standout among base metals, at one point gaining almost 11%, while nickel also surged and copper hit an all-time-high.
The so-called debasement trade, in which investors avoid government bonds and currencies due to worries over ballooning debt levels, has underpinned the rally, especially in precious metals.
A relatively weak greenback makes US dollar-denominated commodities cheaper for many buyers.
Gold rose 65% last year, while silver jumped almost 150%, with each metal seeing its best annual performance since 1979.
“When gold moves first, it usually signals declining trust in fiat currencies,” said Hao Hong, chief investment officer at Lotus Asset Management Ltd and a Chinese market commentator who has backed metals.
“Everything is measured against gold, then most assets look cheap right now, which is a strong tailwind for commodities, especially metals.”
Industrial metals like copper already were facing looming supply shortfalls, analysts said, at the same time as tariff fears kept many metals locked in warehouses in the United States, tightening availability in the global market.
Elevated speculative activity in China has helped turbocharge the metals rally, with traders and deep-pocketed funds piling into commodities like copper, nickel and lithium.
Trading volumes on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) have been elevated since late December, and total open interest across SHFE’s six base metals hit a record on Wednesday.
The latest trade data for Asia’s biggest economy showed exports booming, adding to other signs of resilience including busier factory activity while the country’s equity markets also have chalked up impressive gains.
Base metals have broadly benefited from expectations of tighter supply this year as global mines and smelters struggle to keep up with demand.
The copper market saw multiple major disruptions last year, while aluminium faced constraints in top producer China, and tin exports were crimped from second-biggest supplier Indonesia.
Nickel may also face some tightness this year as Indonesia will likely issue quotas between 250 million tonnes and 260 million tonnes of nickel ore.
“A broader base of investors is starting to recognise the more structural trend of some metals as well as the problem on the supply side,” said Alexandre Carrier, portfolio manager at DNCA Invest Strategic Resource Funds.
And some of the commodities, notably silver and copper, have been aided by the prospect of US import levies.
Copper’s gains have been partially driven by a looming White House decision on import taxes later this year, prompting traders to rush metal to US ports.
The market is also waiting for the outcome of a US Section 232 investigation, which could lead to tariffs on precious metals such as silver, platinum and palladium.
That tariff overhang has prevented some metal from leaving the United States and entering the dominant spot trading hub in London, leading to a condition called backwardation, where near-term spot prices trade above those in the future, indicating tightness.
“It turns out that silver is a bit of a ‘Goldilocks’ metal, because the forward returns are lousy when the gold/silver ratio either rises or falls by a large amount,” said Cameron Crise, macro strategist at Markets Live.
“Perhaps this time will be different. Still, silver is arguably trading on psychology, rather than fundamentals, and that really doesn’t change. For the last five-and-a-half decades, Goldilocks (or at least silver) has been equally afraid of both the bulls and the bears.”
Still, there have been voices of caution especially for industrial metals.
Citigroup Inc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, for example, see copper prices retreating later this year. Chinese physical demand has been lacklustre since late 2025.
Earlier this week, Citi upgraded its three-month forecasts for gold and silver to US$5,000 per ounce and US$100 an ounce, respectively.
Despite ongoing geopolitical volatility, “it would be healthy” for precious metals to see some consolidation before the next leg up, said Joni Teves, precious metals strategist at UBS.
Still, she said, “it’s hard to fight momentum at this point in time”. — Bloomberg
