New Gold record: Ahead of the turmoil
Gold continues to set one record after another. This week, the price of the precious metal has again updated its historical maximum, reaching $3,800 per troy ounce. One gets the feeling that the growth will be endless. Just a couple of weeks earlier, the all-time record adjusted for inflation, which was set in 1980, was broken. Gold price records are not just statistics: they were usually a sure indicator of tectonic shifts in global geopolitics. About how the price of gold changed and what accompanied the previous records — in the material of Izvestia.
A quiet harbor in stormy times
Gold is traditionally valued by investors as a "safe haven" — an asset capable of maintaining value in times of uncertainty. Its price rises sharply when confidence in traditional financial instruments such as stocks and currencies declines. In recent years, this "safety" of gold has been expressed in particular. In just four years, the precious metal has risen in price by two and a half times, and it was impossible even to talk about the effect of a low base, since the cost was very high before that, in the region of $ 1600-1700 per ounce. In 2025 alone, prices increased by more than 40%. And this is not the limit.
According to Dmitry Vishnevsky, an analyst at Digital Broker, in the foreseeable future the price of gold may reach maximum values in the region of $ 3,800–$ 4,000 per ounce.
— At the same time, experts from Goldman Sachs and analyst Jeffrey Gundlach predict an increase to $4,000 by the end of 2025, which is 8% higher than current levels. This jump is due to the Fed's declining interest rates, the weakening of the dollar, and increasing geopolitical and economic instability, which continue to support demand for this asset," the source added.
— In the spot market, the price of gold approached the level of $3,800 per troy ounce. Further market movement depends on whether the price can gain a foothold above this mark. We assume that if it can, then the next target may be the level of $4,000 per troy ounce. In the long term, it is possible to move above this mark," said Finam analyst Nikolay Dudchenko.
The collapse of Bretton Woods
Indeed, geopolitical and economic uncertainty, a change in the "rules of the game", and the aggravation of interstate contradictions are the best fuel for stock market surges in the precious metal. In addition, rising prices are often a good predictor of future shocks. Previous price peaks were associated with tumultuous events in the world.
For example, gold has gone up sharply since 1913, which was greatly facilitated by the First World War, as well as economic crises. In the United States, where the shocks were relatively mild before the Great Depression compared to Europe, gold on the black market increased in price by 64%. However, the government artificially kept prices at just over $20 per ounce. And in 1933, the administration of US President Franklin Roosevelt forcibly bought gold from the population at a fixed price, after which it released it. The value of the precious metal immediately soared by almost 70%, setting a historical maximum. All this coincided with Roosevelt's "New Deal" in the United States, similar reforms in Europe, Soviet industrialization, and the beginning of preparations for World War II.
The next peak (surpassed only recently) occurred almost 47 years later. In January 1980, the price of gold reached a staggering $850 per ounce. In 2025 dollars, this amounts to about $3,590. This episode was the culmination of a decade of upheaval.
First, the Bretton Woods system collapsed: in 1971, US President Richard Nixon abolished the direct convertibility of the dollar into gold. This event disrupted the post-war financial system and sent the world's currencies into free float (the Jamaican system), giving rise to an era of instability and inflation. The latter was combined with economic stagnation, giving rise to stagflation, exacerbated by the 1973 oil crisis. With money devaluing, investors bought up gold en masse to protect their savings.
The world as a whole was in a state of acute geopolitical crisis. The Islamic Revolution in Iran, the taking of American hostages in Tehran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, pushing investors to seek financial refuge. At the same time, the crisis phenomena in the Soviet economy were growing, which became the key reason for the fall of the USSR 10 years later. The whole world was gradually entering the stage of rapid globalization, which led to the crisis of nation-states that had dominated the world for centuries.
The crisis of the 21st century
After decades of relative calm, the next significant peak was the period after the global financial crisis in 2008. Although gold briefly fell in price at the height of the panic in the markets due to investors' need for liquidity, it soon began to grow rapidly, exceeding the $1,000 per ounce mark in 2008. This growth continued in the following years, reaching about $2,500 in modern money. Not a record, but the second record in history.
Several factors also played a role here. First, there was a crisis of confidence in the financial system: the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent chain reaction around the world undermined faith in the reliability of the largest banks and the complexity of financial instruments. Gold, as a physical asset without counterparty risk, has become an obvious alternative.
In response to the crisis, central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, launched an unprecedented program of "quantitative easing," essentially printing money to alleviate the liquidity shortage. These actions have raised concerns about a future spike in inflation and currency devaluation, which has made gold even more attractive. In Europe, the debt crisis followed the banking crisis. This peak marked a shift in central bank policy and highlighted the vulnerability of the modern financial system built on debt and complex derivatives.
A new historical high was recorded in August 2020, when the price of gold exceeded $2,000 per ounce. The reason was the COVID-19 pandemic, which paralyzed the global economy. Lockdowns and supply chain disruptions have caused a sharp economic downturn around the world, creating deep uncertainty about the future. Governments and central banks have responded to the crisis with trillion-dollar financial aid packages and further interest rate cuts. This has once again increased investors' concerns about the growth of government debt and the long-term stability of fiat currencies.
Now we see a whole range of acute problems that dominate the global economy and the financial system. Debts have been accumulating for decades and now, it seems, they have passed a critical point — even the calmest investors have questioned the prospects of the largest states to borrow as much as they want. Debt crises used to hit the periphery of the "collective West" — countries like Italy and Greece. Now the risks are concentrated in the most financially stable countries — the USA, Great Britain, France. The situation in developing economies is also far from cloudless. And all this is happening against the backdrop of a gradually ongoing geopolitical confrontation. The conditions for the rapid growth of gold are ideal.
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