9.3
8.173 reviews
English
EN
The gold price rose sharply in the corona year 2020, partly thanks to support measures from governments and central banks. The price of the precious metal rose by 24.6% in dollar terms, the biggest one-year price increase since 2010. Due to the strengthening of the euro, the return for European investors was somewhat lower, but still not bad at 14.4%. Silver did even better in 2020 with a return of 47.5% in dollars and 35.4% in euros. In both currencies, that was the best result for silver since 2010.
Both precious metals benefited from a flight to safe havens last year. Central banks announced new asset purchase programs. In the meantime, governments continued to increase their budget deficits to cushion the blow of the corona measures. This further fueled inflation fears. Interest rates on government bonds also fell, making the effective yield even negative in many cases. Gold and silver don't earn interest, but that's still better than negative interest rates.
Of all precious metals, gold yielded the most stable returns, as the price of this precious metal fell the least during the corona crisis. Silver experienced a much bigger drop in price in the spring, but more than made up for it later in the year. From its low in March to its highest level in the summer, the price of this precious metal doubled. Silver rose to its highest level since 2013.
The Gold price made fewer major fluctuations, but reached its highest level ever at the beginning of August. The price rose to $2,070 per troy ounce, leaving the old record of around $1,920 per troy ounce set in 2011 far behind. The breakthrough of the corona vaccine in November put pressure on the prices of both precious metals for a while, but in December both gold and silver recovered to end the year on a very positive note.
Platinum and palladium also managed to end the year on a positive note, despite a sharp drop in prices in March. These precious metals, which have many industrial applications, achieved a yield of 10.3% and 20.6% respectively measured in dollars. Measured in euros, the return over 2020 was 2.4% and 11.3% respectively.
This contribution comes from Geotrendlines
