2026 Promises More For Precious Metals Markets

Market Commentary

2026 Promises More For Precious Metals Markets

7 January 2026

Last year, 2025, was an extraordinary year for the world and for precious metals markets.

This year, 2026, promises, or threatens, to be even more extraordinary as last year’s trends continue to unfold, perhaps in more volatile fashion.

Looking at precious metals, last year was unprecedented in many ways.

Gold, silver, and platinum all rose sharply to new record levels.
Palladium prices more than doubled, although they did not surpass their 2022 record price.
Investment demand rose sharply in the face of the greatest levels of political and economic risks and uncertainties since December 1941.
Also: A problem in the precious metals markets is that there was a sharp increase in the volumes of misinformation, disinformation, outright dishonesty, and scams in 2025.

Some tables and charts later in this Market Commentary illustrate the extraordinary precious metals price movements last year.

This year promises, or threatens, to be even more extraordinary. Or not

Investment demand has been the major driver behind gold and silver prices, and it will continue to be so.

All of the problems that have caused investors to pour into precious metals over the past year continue to plague the world economy and society. Many of them seem likely to become more volatile and disruptive as 2026 progresses. Just the first few days of this year have seen evidence of this. In this environment CPM has been and continues to project that investment demand for gold and silver, and probably platinum, palladium, copper, aluminum and other metals, will remain strong this year, keeping metals prices high if not pushing them to even higher levels.

There is a possibility that the political, economic, financial, and social dysfunction and divisions that have propelled investors to run to precious metals could shift to a less concerning level. There is that possibility; however, most observers, including CPM’s analysts and advisors, do not see this as a probability. CPM expects more of the same in 2026.

CPM in 2026: More information and analysis to get to clients. More Market

Last year also was extraordinary for CPM Group. We may have worked harder than ever before in our 40 years as CPM Group and 50 years analyzing precious metals commodities markets. We experienced a surge of new clients seeking our knowledge and advice, while our existing clients increased their use of our expertise. It has been a chore to keep up with the demand for our on-going research, analysis, and advisory work.

There is much to analyze and more issues to discuss in 2026.

One of CPM’s plans is to increase the use of its Market Alerts for clients. CPM has produced Market Alerts for its clients since we spun off from Goldman Sachs in 1986. In fact, we produced them for J. Aron and Goldman’s clients before that.

Some of the topics we hope to elucidate in detail in Market Alerts for our clients include the following.

Accurate information on central bank gold purchases.
The fallacy that central banks and investors are abandoning or fleeing the U.S. dollar and Treasury securities.
Sovereign Wealth Funds are not central banks.
- There are crucial differences
Secrecy is important and valuable
Solar panel use of silver.
- There are technological changes on the way that may begin to emerge in 2026.
Silver-bearing lithium ion batteries and their competitive disadvantages.
- There are formidable, more efficient, lower cost alternatives for EVs and ESS.
- The future in small batteries
- The zinc-silver batteries experience of the early 2000s.
The Indian silver and gold markets
The Chinese silver and gold markets.
Is it like December 1979 or not?
- There are important similarities and differences between 1979 – 1980, 2011, and 2026.
Disaggregating the sources of the increased value of investor gold and silver holdings, and central bank gold holdings, between value increased due to net additions to such inventories and increases in the price or value of existing holdings.
The economic conditions existing in the quarters preceding recessions, 1947 to the present.
- Sometimes economics slide into recessions from periods of weak economic growth. More often they plunge into recessions from periods of strong growth.
- There are implications for 2026 and beyond in this.
Who stole the Banco Centrale de Venezuela’s monetary gold reserves, and what is left.
- Also, what lessons may be derived from Peru’s gold and silver repatriation in the 1980s.
Details on Soviet and then Russian gold reserves.

CPM public information

We also produce Market Commentaries, which are distributed to CPM’s clients, Friends of CPM, the press, and a broader distribution list of non-clients who have requested to receive such informational reports. The cost of producing Market Commentaries is subsidized by paying clients. We would like to thank those clients for making these reports publicly available, free of charge.

We will continue to produce and distribute broadly at no charge such Market Commentaries, as well as videos posted on Youtube (typically every Tuesday and Friday). The purpose of these written and video commentaries, online seminars, and other events is:

Assist in educating market participants
Increasing market participation by mainstream investors
Market CPM’s brand of knowledge-based real independent research
Publicly memorialize things that CPM knows for posterity
Counter massive misinformation, disinformation, lack of accurate information, marketing hype.

In addition to all these services, CPM will continue to produce its Gold, Silver, and Platinum Group Metals Yearbooks, along the schedule here.

2026 CPM Yearbooks Release Schedule
Gold Yearbook                                    March 24
Silver Yearbook                                  May 27
PGM Yearbook                                   July 21

CPM also will host its online Silver Facts and Fantasies Online Seminar in late February and the companion report Silver Truths in early March.

Maximum Asymmetry In Gold, Silver, and Platinum Group Metals Markets

The precious metals markets are full of inaccurate information. Accurate data and analyses are scarce.

These are among the most asymmetrical major markets in the world: A few people know a lot and a lot of people do not know much or only access inaccurate information.

This has always been the case in gold and silver markets, dating back millennia. The flow of misinformation, knowingly deceitful marketing, and scams always increases during periods of heightened investor interest in metals and rising prices. This was true in 1979, as it was in 2008 – 2011. And it is true today.

CPM always has positioned itself as the source of credible, honest, unbiased, accurate estimates of supply and demand trends, as well as other aspects of these markets. We will continue to serve this function in the precious metals markets, in 2026 and beyond.