By Gregory Zuckerman and Hannah Erin Lang
Prices for gold, silver and platinum have surged to record levels, and individual investors are celebrating. The pros? Not so much.
Some trading professionals and hedge-fund managers, including billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, were bullish on gold, silver and other commodities last year. But many trimmed their positions, according to investors and trading data, following an industry tactic of locking in gains as prices rise.
"There was a lot of profit-taking in December" by hedge funds and other bigger investors, says Kathleen Kelley, founder and chief investment officer of Queen Anne's Gate Capital, which advises funds and others on commodities.
Now, with gold up 23% this month and silver up over 63%, it is investors such as Stephan Anhalt who are benefiting.
A 37-year-old in London, Anhalt has been adding to his gold and silver holdings for more than a decade. As prices jumped in recent weeks, he has kept right on buying.
"When panic hits and uncertainty is high, everyone wants to have it," says Anhalt, who works for a pharmaceutical company. "You can sleep at night."
Gold is now up 93% over the past year, and silver is up 265%. Meanwhile, the most-active platinum contract is up 28% this month and 168% over the past year.
Propelling the buying: a drop in the value of the dollar, worries about a U.S. government shutdown, the nation's rising debt levels and growing geopolitical tensions.
Jake Saltzman got the gold bug about a year ago. The 30-year-old was feeling vaguely bearish about the U.S. dollar and hunting for a better return than the 2% yield offered by his government bonds. He ventured out to buy gold at a coin shop.
"I kind of just asked the guy at the front desk how this worked," the Washington, D.C.- based consultant says. Saltzman bought a few gold bars and coins at $2,900 an ounce, a move that wasn't popular with his investing buddies at the time.
"A lot of them thought I was crazy," he says. Gold prices have rocketed some 83% since then, making that trip to the coin shop the most successful investing move Saltzman has ever made.
From mid-December through mid-January, individual investors poured $921.8 million into silver-linked exchange-traded funds, according to Vanda Research. That is the heaviest 30-day buying in history, researchers say.
Last year, individual investors funneled more dollars into the leading gold exchange-traded fund than in the past five years combined, according to J.P. Morgan.
ETFs now hold 100.6 million ounces of gold and 835 million ounces of silver, near-record levels.
The buying has been global, including by individuals in China and India. New gold buyers have emerged, too, including Tether, the operator of the world's biggest stablecoin.
It is a contrast with hedge funds and other trading firms. They were "net long" 139,162 gold futures contracts as of last week, according to the most recent Commitment of Traders data published by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That is higher than a few weeks ago but down from about 173,000 contracts last summer and about 258,000 contracts in September of 2024.
These traders have been selling silver lately. Hedge funds and other trading firms were net long about 11,326 silver contracts as of last week, down from about 50,000 contracts in June of last year.
"Hedge funds haven't done much buying lately," Kelley says, as many prefer to wait for a pullback in price.
There are signs of a shift. In recent weeks, commodity-trading advisers, or CTAs -- cousins of hedge funds trained to follow trends -- have chased prices higher, traders say. Some hedge funds that dumped gold investments late last year got back in recently, when the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European allies resisting a U.S. takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland.
Part of the issue for bigger firms is that silver and platinum are relatively small markets. That makes it difficult for the investors to establish meaningful positions.
And some pros are wary of markets that exhibit unprecedented trading patterns. In some recent days, for example, silver has traded in a $20 daily range -- even though it was worth $20 an ounce just a few years ago.
"Silver is trading like a meme stock, there are signs of dysfunction," says Nicky Shiels, head of research and metals strategy at MKS PAMP.
Reasonable reasons to resist precious metals haven't served as consolation for the big investors, however.
"There's deep frustration," among hedge funds and other institutional investors missing out on the price surge, Shiels says. "There's definitely a feeling of being left behind."
Watch: We Spent a Day in New York's Diamond District to See the Gold rush
Write to Gregory Zuckerman at Gregory.Zuckerman@wsj.com and Hannah Erin Lang at hannaherin.lang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 29, 2026 22:00 ET (03:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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