Silver and Gold Rebound as Iran War Finally Gives Crude Oil a Year-on-Year Price Rise

SILVER and GOLD PRICES held onto most of last night's surge on Wednesday, showing a gain for the week so far as crude oil slipped but headed for its first year-on-year gain in 20 months thanks to the ongoing Iran War.

Bond and stock prices also rallied with precious metals as US President Trump's claim that talks with Iran about ending the war had yielded a "big prize" was today followed by Turkey and Pakistan both saying they are acting as intermediaries between Washington and Tehran.

But with gold and silver erasing the last of Monday's steep precious metals crash, "it is not beautiful even on paper," Al Jazeera quotes a senior source in Iran, who calls Washington's 15-point peace plan "extremely maximalist and unreasonable".

"We don't want to be fooled again" other Tehran sources said after the US joined Israel in attacking Iran at the start of this month despite ongoing talks.

Peaking last Thursday and Friday at 4-year highs around $113, Brent crude oil today sank as low as $98.85 per barrel but held $2 above Monday night's slump before rallying to $100 again.

Having come into 2026 with the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasting a record glut thanks to massive oversupply, that puts crude oil on track for its first year-on-year gain since July 2024 at a month-average price of $94 per barrel.

Gold, in contrast, has now shown a year-on-year rise in each of the past 36 months, while silver's month-average price in Dollars has made an unbroken run of year-on-year gains since February 2024.

Monday's crash to 4-month lows saw silver trading 15.7% beneath last Friday's midday auction in London, while gold bullion lost as much as 10.1% from last weekend.

But silver today traded up to $73.30 per Troy ounce around London's midday auction, showing a 1.3% gain from Friday's fixing.

Gold meantime recovered last Friday's London 3pm fixing at $4562 per Troy ounce.

"We've seen gold playing its usual, typical role in periods of distress," says UK multinational bank Standard Chartered's global head of commodities research Suki Cooper, "acting as a nearby source of liquidity" for traders needing to raise cash to cover losing positions on other assets.

Gold made "a healthy correction in January and [now] March, not an unwind of the secular trade," says strategist Nicky Shiels at Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp.

"Gold is becoming a multi-year critical portfolio asset, not a cyclical hedge...[and] silver is 'high-beta gold', highly USD-sensitive and nowhere near its inflation-adjusted highs around $200/oz.

"[That's] leaving ample runway as investment demand (retail + ETF) reignites."

Back in the Middle East, death and destruction continued despite the US claims of progress in talks to end the war, with Hezbollah in Lebanon striking Israel's northern city of Karmiel with a missile strike as the UN Human Rights Council condemned Iran's "egregious, unprovoked attacks" on its Gulf neighbours.

Iran said it is closely monitoring the build-up of US troops in the region.

"We negotiate with bombs," said US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.