Business & Economics
Gold Breaches $4,400/oz as Fed Easing Bets and Venezuela Crisis Stoke Safe-Haven Rush
On 22 Dec 2025 spot gold punched through US$4,400 an ounce for the first time, capping a 67 % year-to-date surge driven by looming 2026 Fed rate cuts and escalating U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
Focusing Facts
- Spot gold printed US$4,404.12 at 13:49 SGT (05:49 UTC) on 22 Dec 2025, with February futures settling at US$4,430.30.
- Gold’s 67 % YTD rise puts it on track for its strongest annual jump since 1979, when prices rose 126 %.
- Spot silver hit a record US$69.44/oz the same day, up 138 % in 2025.
Context
Gold last went parabolic during the 1979-80 stagflation spike, when it leapt from US$226 in Jan 1978 to US$873 in Jan 1980 before halving in two years; today’s breakout echoes that frenzy but under a different regime of negative real yields, colossal sovereign debt (U.S. >125 %-of-GDP) and central-bank diversification away from the dollar. The move also rhymes with the 2011 US debt-ceiling standoff, when gold set what was then a record US$1,921 amid fears of fiscal dysfunction. This moment signals two long-running tectonics: (1) the century-long erosion of fiat purchasing power accelerated by debt-financed policy responses, and (2) the slow shift toward a multipolar reserve system in which emerging-market central banks and even crypto-stablecoin treasuries accumulate bullion as neutral collateral. Whether US$4,400 marks the dawn of a new gold standard or the blow-off top of a liquidity-driven bubble will matter far more to historians assessing 2020-2050 monetary order than to day-traders chasing the tape today; either way, the crossing of this psychological threshold punctuates a half-century trend of investors hedging against politico-monetary volatility that the metal has symbolised since the 1933 Gold Reserve Act re-priced it for the New Deal.
Perspectives
US investor-oriented financial media
e.g., CNBC, Yahoo! Finance — Frame the fresh records in gold and silver as confirmation of a still-powerful bull market that is likely to extend, touting the yellow metal’s ‘reemerged’ hedge status and projecting even higher prices into 2026. Eager to keep retail traders engaged, these outlets spotlight eye-catching price targets and ETF windfalls while skating past warnings that such parabolic moves often precede sharp reversals.
Asian business press
Financial Express India, Khaleej Times — Explain the surge chiefly through Fed-cut expectations and safe-haven flows, but urge caution by noting near-term range-bound trading and the risk of profit-taking. Catering to domestic savers, they mirror wire-service facts yet temper enthusiasm so readers don’t blame them if a pull-back occurs, offering analyst caveats without deep scrutiny of structural risks.
Outlets foregrounding geopolitical conflict
TRT World, Free Malaysia Today — Cast the rally as a direct reaction to escalating U.S.–Venezuela tensions and other flashpoints, portraying bullion’s jump as a barometer of mounting global instability. With editorial incentives to spotlight U.S. aggression, they accentuate conflict narratives and may overstate geopolitics’ role while playing down monetary policy or market-technical drivers.