Forget about stocks and bonds. And even Bitcoin. Gold is the red hot market performer of 2025.
The yellow metal is up 38% this year and trading at an all-time high above $3,635 an ounce. So that begs the obvious question: How much longer can gold continue to outshine other assets?
The near-term future still looks promising for gold, according to many analysts and strategists, in large part due to expectations that the Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates. That would make the precious metal even more attractive than bonds since yields may fall. Gold is also immune from concerns about lower rates since it isn’t a yield-bearing asset.
Aakash Doshi, head of gold strategy at State Street Investment Management, outlined a scenario where gold could hit $3,700 by the end of this month. He sees a 50% chance of that happening if the Fed cuts rates at the September meeting—and either sounds more dovish or warns about the risk of stagflation, a slowing economy coupled with worries about higher prices.
Doshi added that investors should keep an eye on the U.S. dollar. The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of other major global currencies, is down nearly 10% this year. If the dollar falls even further, that should be a positive for gold.
“The biggest driver of higher gold right now has been the multi-quarter weaker U.S. dollar trend,” Doshi told Barron’s in an email.
Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, has been bullish on gold since last year—back when he said the metal had “decisively” crossed the $2,000-an-ounce threshold. Yardeni noted in a report Tuesday that he is still upbeat about gold’s prospects, largely due to geopolitical concerns.
Yardeni cited multiple positives for gold: President Donald Trump’s repeated vocal calls for the Fed to lower interest rates; concerns about tariffs; Chinese investors’ push to buy gold as a haven due to housing bubble fears; and the rising wealth of Indian consumers. Add all that up and it’s a recipe for more gold buying in general globally, but especially by major central banks around the world.
“Our bullishness is supported by the ‘Gold Put,’ provided by central banks that are increasing the percentage of their international reserves in gold,” Yardeni wrote.
International gold reserves now account for about 15% of total gold reserves, up from 9% when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yardeni noted. He is sticking to his previous targets of gold hitting $4,000 an ounce by the end of this year and $5,000 by the end of 2026.
James St. Aubin, CIO of Ocean Park Asset Management, also predicts that gold has more room to run. He believes a lot of that has to do with U.S. fiscal, trade, and monetary policies. In other words, investors worried about higher debt loads, bigger deficits, and lower interest rates are turning to gold instead of the dollar.
“Central banks are now a lot less dollar-dependent. Gold is dollar-refugee land,” St. Aubin said in an interview with Barron’s. “This seems like the beginning of a longer-term trend. Gold has historically had these long cycles to it and it feels like we’re in one of them now.”
Silver is getting a boost lately too. The precious metal is up nearly 45% this year and trading around $42 an ounce, a multidecade high. (Silver peaked at a price of just below $50 in 1980 after a famous attempt to corner the market by the Hunt brothers, two oil billionaires.)
Both gold and silver remain well above their 200-day moving averages, a technical measure that suggests that there is more upside ahead for the two commodities.
The bull run for gold and silver has been good news for shares of precious metals miners, too. Pan American Silver is up nearly 70% this year while Barrick Mining has surged more than 75%. Newmont Mining has more than doubled, making it the second-best performer in the S&P 500 in 2025—trailing only the artificial intelligence market darling Palantir.
It’s a testament to these somewhat strange times for the market, one where a gold mining stock, typically more of a safer investment, is rallying almost as ferociously as an AI leader.
Write to Paul R. La Monica at paul.lamonica@barrons.com
