Precious metals and growth stocks usually don’t rip together. One soars and the other sinks, one sinks and the other soars — ad infinitum.
And yet, as 2025 comes to a close, gold and silver are rallying even as tech stocks stage a simultaneous rally. It’s a phenomenon that highlights just how split market psychology has become, with both fear and hope reigning.
Here’s what to know.
In recent days, gold has rocketed through prior records, with silver following close behind to hit all-time highs. This comes after a 70% rise in gold prices so far this year, with silver prices rising even faster, gaining some 130%. Other precious metals have followed suit.
Fueling the historic rally is a familiar but potent and volatile mix of forces. Geopolitical risk — from energy-related tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela to recent escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict — has appeared to drive greater demand for traditional safe-haven assets. At the same time, markets appear increasingly confident that the Federal Reserve will pivot toward easier policy in 2026 — not least because President Donald Trump will nominate a successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell in the spring.
With the possibility of another easing cycle ahead, alongside increasing political pressure on the Fed, central banks across the globe are adding to gold reserves. At the same time, inflows to precious-metal ETFs remain high, a trend that has incrementally contributed to the rise in underlying asset prices. Investor clearly remain enamored with the “debasement trade,” which describes the broad rotation out of so-called fiat currencies.
Futures in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite pointed toward an open in the green early Monday. The index has risen some 21% year to date, driven ever higher by the Magnificent 7’s market dominance and huge investor enthusiasm for AI plays — even as fears of an AI bubble have dominated headlines.
After a softer start to December, tech stocks rebounded, making up lost ground as, in recent weeks, sentiment regarding AI economics — especially an expectation that compute costs will fall faster than revenues — has helped calm anxiety about massive capex spending.
The last time gold and growth stocks moved closely in tandem was during the pandemic-era liquidity surge of 2020 and early 2021, when emergency government stimulus and ultra-low interest rates pushed investors simultaneously towards both safe havens and risk. Gold climbed to then-record highs as governments ran massive deficits and central banks expanded balance sheets. At the same time, tech stocks rebounded from early-2020 market lows as corporations and households reconfigured themselves around a digital-everything approach.
Whether these trades proved profitable over the longer term depends on how far out you follow them. Looking over the last five years, price charts show an abundance of day-to-day volatility. But all in all, the Nasdaq is up over 80% since then, while gold has gained over 130%.
