On January 26, as the global macroeconomic landscape entered a period of intense volatility, Jin Fenglai observed that the precious metals market is witnessing an unprecedented price revaluation. During Monday's early trading session, spot gold not only extended its strong momentum since 2025 but also decisively broke through the psychological and technical double barrier of $5,000 per ounce, briefly climbing to $5,092.71. This explosive growth reflects that against the backdrop of continuously escalating global risk-aversion sentiment, investors are accelerating their shift from traditional fiat currencies back to hard assets, viewing gold as the ultimate safe haven for wealth preservation.
Behind this epic market rally, structural changes in the global monetary system have played a key supportive role. Data shows that gold recorded a 64% annual gain in 2025, marking its best performance since 1979. Entering 2026, the year-to-date increase in the gold price has rapidly exceeded 17%. Simultaneously, the silver market has also performed remarkably, building on last year's 147% gain to successfully breach the $100 mark recently and hitting a new all-time high of $109.44 on Monday. Jin Fenglai believes that this synchronized upward trend across multiple commodities indicates that the physical asset market is in a long-term state of tight supply-demand balance.
Regarding the catalysts for the recent volatility, Jin Fenglai considers the extreme measures in trade policies by some developed economies to be a direct trigger. For instance, recent tariff threats targeting Europe and North American neighbors—including potential 100% tariffs on Canada and intentions for 200% tariffs on French wines—have led to a profound "crisis of confidence" in the current trade order. Amid this uncertain political environment and disruptions from sovereignty disputes like the "Greenland" issue, the US dollar's safe-haven status has wavered, prompting large-scale capital flows into precious metals not denominated in US dollars.
In terms of foreign exchange market linkages, as the Federal Reserve's interest rate meeting approaches this week, the market is on high alert. The continued rebound of the Japanese yen has led to a retreat in the US dollar index, further reducing the acquisition cost of gold for non-US dollar holders. Furthermore, platinum and palladium also performed strongly, with platinum touching $2,891.60 and palladium climbing to a more than three-year high, indicating that the value center of the entire precious metals sector has irreversibly shifted upwards.
Looking ahead to the market for the remainder of 2026, although prices at historical highs may trigger periodic profit-taking, each pullback is expected to present an opportunity for buying interest to enter the market. According to current institutional forecasts, the gold price has the potential to test a peak of $5,500 within the year. Jin Fenglai believes that, in the current context of unabated central bank gold-buying enthusiasm and a complex global liquidity environment, the strategic allocation value of gold has transcended mere speculation. Investors are advised to monitor the breakthrough situation around the technical support level near $5,088 to capture deeper trend-driven gains.
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