Gold prices extended gains on Tuesday, breaking another record as investors rushed to the safe-haven asset ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariff rollout. The move, set to take effect on Wednesday and applicable to all countries, has heightened fears of an escalating global trade war, with markets also eyeing automobile tariffs due April 3.
The metal’s momentum reflects investor caution as concerns grow that widespread tariffs may weaken global growth. Gold remained supported by central bank purchases, ETF inflows, and expectations of American rate cuts. With these drivers still in place, the yellow metal is likely to extend its bullish trend in the coming weeks.
Geopolitical tensions further reinforce gold’s appeal. Tensions in the Middle East have continued this week while peace efforts in Eastern Europe seem to have had limited success with Russia largely ignoring Donald Trump’s overtures in Ukraine.
Private investment demand for gold remains high
Gold’s latest run of fresh record prices has failed to dent 2025’s rebound in private investor demand, new data from world-leading marketplace BullionVault shows today.
In British Pound terms, the price of gold rose 15.9% in the first three months of 2025, its strongest increase since David Cameron called the Brexit referendum in Q1 2016. Gold also recorded 18 new all-time GBP highs in Q1, the most since the 19 recorded in July-to-September 2011, peak of the global financial crisis.
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But rather than selling more gold than they bought, private investors as a group snapped six calendar quarters of profit-taking to grow their combined holdings on the BullionVault platform, albeit by only 86 kilograms (0.2%) to 44.2 tonnes.
“Already the best-performing asset of the 21st Century to date, gold is surging as Trump 2.0 turns what was left of the US-led world order on its head,” explained BullionVault director of research Adrian Ash this week. “Trump’s tariff comments and his increasingly volatile stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine are proving the perfect chaos for new record gold prices, stronger even than the Covid catastrophe of five years ago. The precious metal thrives on geopolitical uncertainty, economic stagflation and falling stock markets. Trump is delivering all three.”
The Gold Investor Index – a unique measure of sentiment which tracks the number of buyers against the number of people choosing to sell – also rose to its strongest quarterly reading since spring 2023, averaging 54.5 between January and March and rising 0.2 points from the final 3 months of last year.
Bullion market recovering from profit taking
Compared to Q1 last year, when the Gold Investor Index set a record quarterly low of 50.5, the index has risen by 4.1 points, its sharpest four-quarter increase since the Covid Crisis of 2020. Any reading on the Gold Investor Index above 50.0 signals more buyers than sellers using BullionVault. The index set a monthly low of 47.5 last March as gold crossed above $2100 per Troy ounce for the first time, spurring record-heavy profit-taking among gold investors.
But with gold ending Monday almost $1000 higher, the Gold Investor Index read 54.6, exactly in line with its long-term average and down by 1.7 from February’s leap to a 45-month high.
“While the pace of gold’s gains is rightly making headlines, the upturn in investment demand remains very measured to date,” said Ash. “Gold’s latest run of fresh record highs continues to attract new buyers. But rather than any kind of mania, gold is still recovering from last year’s low demand and profit-taking. Its appeal, like the price, could yet have much further to run if Trump’s policies tip the stock-market correction into a crash.”
The number of new account openings on BullionVault last month slipped 4.0% from the near-four year high seen in February. That still put it 40.5% above the prior 12-month average, led by strong growth in France, Italy, the UK and Germany.
Silver prices also rose sharply in Q1, increasing by 12.5% in Pound Sterling terms – the fastest quarterly gain since Q4 2022 – and setting new all-time highs for both UK and Euro investors on a quarterly-average basis.
But in contrast to gold, silver continued to meet net selling by private investors, with BullionVault users cutting their combined holdings by 13.8 tonnes since New Year (-1.2%) to the lowest by weight since December 2020 at 1,142 tonnes. By value however, BullionVault clients’ silver holdings rose 11.2% across Q1 to a new month-end record of £967 million.
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