Precious Metals
December 23, 2024
1 min
Precious Metals
As 2024 comes to a close, gold, silver, and copper have experienced notable price growth. Gold has had an outstanding year so far, with prices rising by more than 27%. The precious metal soared to an all-time high of $2,790 per ounce in October 2024, marking its strongest performance in decades. Investor demand surged amid geopolitical tensions, inflationary concerns, and a flight to safe-haven assets during periods of uncertainty. Gold’s enduring appeal as a store of value was reinforced as inflation and market volatility spooked investors, leading to a steady climb in its price throughout the year.
Silver also experienced substantial growth so far in 2024, gaining over 24%. Its price peaked at $34.72 per ounce on October 22, 2024, the highest level in 12 years. Silver’s rise was largely driven by booming industrial demand, particularly from the solar energy and electric vehicle sectors. As global economies accelerated their sustainability initiatives, silver became an increasingly critical material due to its key role in green technologies, such as photovoltaic cells and battery production.
Copper’s YTD growth of 5.37% reflects its steady demand, although it did not experience the same dramatic percentage increases as gold and silver. However, copper hit a record high of $5.20 per pound in May 2024, driven by its critical role in the renewable energy transition and advanced technologies. The metal is essential for clean energy infrastructure, electric vehicles, and the rapidly expanding AI industry, positioning copper as a cornerstone for future industrial development.
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Silver in the Data Center: How AI's Power Crunch Is Building a New Pillar of Industrial Demand
In early 2026, the artificial intelligence narrative shifted abruptly from software capabilities to physical hardware constraints. With tech giants committing hundreds of billions to new infrastructure—pushing global hyperscaler capital expenditures past $600 billion this year—the industry has collided with a new primary bottleneck: a severe power and thermal crunch.
Silver's Use Cases: A Visual Guide to Where the Metal Actually Goes
Silver's Use Cases: A Visual Guide to Where the Metal Actually Goes
Somewhere inside a pressurized-water reactor, an alloy that is four-fifths silver is absorbing neutrons to keep the core in check, a job most silver investors have never heard of. It is a useful reminder that the metal people picture as coins and jewelry mostly works elsewhere, across industry.
Ranked: The Countries That Produced the Most Silver in 2025
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Mexico remained the world's top silver-producing country in 2025, mining 172.9 million ounces (Moz), roughly a fifth of global supply, according to the World Silver Survey 2026, produced for the Silver Institute by Metals Focus. But Mexico's lead narrowed: its output fell 5% for a third straight year, while second-place Peru climbed 7%. Global mine production rose 3% to 846.6 Moz, even as the ranking's top tier told a story of one leader sliding and its closest rival closing in.
Electric Vehicles Are Set to Become the Auto Industry's Biggest Silver Consumer by 2027
Electric Vehicles Are Set to Become the Auto Industry's Biggest Silver Consumer by 2027
Most of silver's 2026 story has been told from the supply side: a sixth straight year of structural deficit and a record price near $121 in January. Less examined is where the next leg of industrial demand actually comes from. With solar, silver's largest industrial use, now facing thrifting and substitution, the Silver Institute points to a quieter end-use picking up the slack: the automotive sector. A December 2025 study from Oxford Economics and the Silver Institute quantifies that shift, and the engine behind it is the electric vehicle.
