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Banks and traders race to capitalize on gold's historic rally
By Leslie Hook
Financial Times, London
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Banks and traders are expanding their precious metals desks and logistics capabilities as they race to capitalise on gold's historic rally this year, which has suddenly made the sleepy world of bullion trading and vaulting one of the most profitable areas in finance.
The blistering rally in gold and silver prices in 2025 has had another burst of energy in recent days, powered by simmering geopolitical tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as bets of US interest rate cuts. Both precious metals hit record-high prices Wednesday.
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The price of gold hit $4,500 a troy ounce for the first time on Wednesday morning, and the silver price crossed the $70 an ounce milestone this week. This takes their gains for the year to 71% and 150% respectively.
Amid the rally, revenues from leading banks’ precious metals trading desks soared 50% during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period of 2024, according to data analytics company Crisil Coalition Greenwich.
"There is a big pot to be made this year, and everyone is being quite aggressive on it," said Callum Minns, research manager at Crisil. Precious metals were becoming "a bigger proportion of the overall markets business" for top banks, he added.
Precious metals trading revenues at 12 leading banks were about $1.4bn between January and September, putting 2025 on course to be the second-best year on record for gold trading, behind 2020, according to Crisil.
Even banks that had previously closed their precious metals desks are now dipping back into the sector -- with Societe Generale, Morgan Stanley, and Mitsui all expanding their precious teams this year, according to market participants. SocGen and Morgan Stanley declined to comment; Mitsui did not respond to a request for comment.
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.ft.com/content/ae214919-1617-48fa-8f0d-7734f5c98e72
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