The price of gold rose to $4,462.10 per troy ounce on the COMEX futures market today, setting a new record high for the precious metal. Gold has now risen 69% year to date, far outpacing the S&P 500, which is up 17%.
It’s no secret what’s driving gold: political chaos, cheap money, and the collapse of Bitcoin have all underlined gold’s status as a safe haven in a time of trouble.
The U.S. was pursuing a third Venezuelan oil tanker today in hopes of impounding it, as part of President Trump’s push to destabilize the Maduro regime. In Eastern Europe, Ukraine bombed a tanker in the Mediterranean that was part of Russia’s illegal “shadow fleet” of vessels that keeps Moscow supplied with cash in spite of international sanctions.
Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts have been worrying about the U.S.’s ever-weakening labor market. Increasingly they are betting that the U.S. Federal Reserve will lower rates more than once in 2026 even though—until recently—only one cut was priced in. Lower interest on dollar-denominated assets is bad for the value of the U.S. dollar—and thus savers seeking to preserve their capital appear to be fleeing to gold.
And then there is Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency’s narrative as “a proven store of value” came undone this year when it hit a high of around $125K per coin and then promptly collapsed to as low as $84.2K, a decline of 34%.
With two live armed conflicts over oil, weakness in the dollar, and Bitcoin off the menu for anxious investors, gold is the beneficiary, analysts said in emails sent to Fortune.
Trump giving away free money also helps, according to David Miller, CIO at Catalyst Funds and a portfolio manager of the Strategy Shares Gold Enhanced Yield exchange-traded fund. “If Trump is going to do the $2,000 ‘free money’ giveaway, then that will be good for gold by creating $2,000 out of thin air without creating any new value and then giving it to people. It makes all existing money worth less, which, relative to gold, makes gold worth more,” he said.
“No one is talking about interest rates being hiked right now, and from that perspective, there’s asymmetric positive risk for gold, because when you cut interest rates, it weakens the dollar. That’s good for gold,” he added. “Another piece is the Big Beautiful Bill, as it essentially enshrines into law that we’re going to run $1.8 [trillion] to $1.9 trillion deficits for the next several years, which gets added on top of the existing $38 trillion in debt. That creates more of the same issue, as you’re making the dollar worth about 5% less each year by continuing to add to that debt.”
Chris Mancini, co–portfolio manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund agreed: “Jerome Powell will probably be replaced by a very dovish Fed chairman in May, which will also be supportive of the gold price. Lower interest rates, higher national debt, and persistent inflation will lend to the narrative that investors should own some gold in a diversified portfolio as a substitute for cash or U.S. Treasuries.”
