Gold isn't even the best-performing precious metal this morning. Spot silver was changing hands near $61.06 an ounce early Friday, up another 0.3% on the day, according to prices tracked by Kitco, while futures contracts on Investing.com traded even higher, around $61.39. Gold, by comparison, was little changed at $4,183.10, up just 0.16%. Platinum and palladium were both firmer too, up 0.64% and 1.12% respectively, rounding out a broad-based move across the metals complex.
The gains extend a run that has made precious metals one of the standout trades of 2026. Silver has roughly doubled in price over the past two years, powered by a mix of investment demand and industrial consumption from solar panels, electric vehicles and the wiring that underpins AI data centers — uses that, unlike gold, tie silver's fortunes directly to the pace of the energy transition and the buildout of computing infrastructure. Gold's own climb has been driven by a more familiar set of forces: central banks adding to reserves, investors seeking shelter from tariff disputes and geopolitical flashpoints, and bets that the Federal Reserve's rate-cutting cycle will keep real yields subdued.
Forecasters split on what comes next
Wall Street's outlook for the rally is far from unanimous. Bank of America has flagged rising risk that gold slips back below $4,000 an ounce before year-end if the dollar firms further, while Morgan Stanley has gone the other direction, forecasting that gold breaks above $5,000 an ounce sometime in the second half of 2027. That split underscores how reliant the trade has become on two forces pulling in opposite directions — a resilient U.S. dollar, which tends to cap metals prices, against safe-haven demand that hasn't let up despite repeated record highs earlier this year.
Silver's advance has been more one-directional. Mining analysts have pointed for several years to persistent deficits between global silver supply and demand, as mine output has struggled to keep pace with industrial consumption, and that structural shortfall has left the market more sensitive to even modest increases in investment buying. Traders will be watching the dollar and Treasury yields in the hours after this morning's jobs report for the next cue on whether the rally keeps broadening or gold's camp — and its mixed forecasts — starts to win out.
