MUMBAI: With international prices of gold and silver scaling new peaks—crossing the $4,100-mark for an ounce of gold and $50.7 for the same quantity of the white metal—domestic prices also hit new records, aided by the festive season demand arising from the upcoming auspicious day to snap them up—Dhanteras.
While gold has delivered more than 55% returns globally and 62% in domestic markets so far this year, the white metal delivered more at close to 70% in the domestic market during this time.
According to Sanjay Agrawal, senior director at Care Ratings, gold has rallied $1,000 per ounce in 207 days, while the metal had taken close to 15 years to move from $1,000 to $2,000. The next leap was far quicker, another $1,000 rise pushed the price to $3,000 within just 14 months ending mid-March 2025. And since March, it has jumped another $1,000.
These metals hit new lifetime highs last week after the dollar index continued to fall and the US government shutdown entered the second week.
Resuming its record bull-run after a few sessions of profit booking last week, when the yellow metal had for the first time crossed the $4000 mark to scale past $4,097 an ounce (28.34 grams), gold futures contracts for December delivery jumped more than 2% on the Multi Commodity Exchange on Monday to hit Rs 1,23,977/10 grams—a new all-time high in the domestic market.
The contracts with February and April expiries meanwhile jumped over 2% each to their respective highs and so did the June futures hitting a fresh lifetime high, jumping around 3% to Rs 1,28,741.
Silver futures meanwhile soared up to 4%.
The prices of gold and silver remain under active watch amid expectations of rising demand ahead of Dhanteras when people in North India snap up these metals.
The ongoing rally has reignited public fascination with the yellow metal, leaving investors, jewellers, and economists alike asking what’s fuelling this surge, and how long it can endure. Many foreign analysts see the metal crossing the $6,000 per ounce mark sometime next year.
The demand for the yellow metal in the physical format has also seen reflection in the digital market with the inflows into gold ETFs jumping as much as 283% in September when the net inflows soared to Rs 8,363.13 crore -- the highest on record -- from Rs 2,189.51 crore in August.
On the other hand, due to demand outweighing supply by a wider margin, the inflows into silver ETFs have also been rising and trading at a hefty 5-12% premium over physical silver.
According to analysts, the steep premium of 5-12% for silver ETFs is primarily due to the rally in global markets coupled with the festive demand and demand from central banks, leading to short-supplies as mining is muted.
According to the note from Axis Mutual Fund, this confluence of factors has pushed total silver ETF holdings in the country to roughly 1.13 billion ounces which is worth over $40 billion by mid-2025. Investment inflows into silver products hit record levels globally in H1 of 2025, adding about 95 million ounces, exceeding the total inflows of the entire previous year.
On October 8, the safe-haven demand saw gold and silver shattering all records and breaching the psychologically sensitive $4,000-per ounce mark globally, peaking at $4020/oz for spot gold and $4,097/oz futures, with silver futures breaching the $50/ounce mark and spot silver at $48.44/ounce.
In the domestic market, prices of gold crossed Rs 1.22 lakh/10 grams and silver futures rose to Rs 1,47,013 per kg. Gold has so far given more than 55% since the beginning of this year on the back of a 27% rally in 2024 and another 24% in the previous year while silver has returned more than 65% during this time.
