Gold set for best quarter since Chernobyl. Miners are doing even better.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Gold’s latest quarterly gains now seriously rival the rise seen in 1986, the year of the Chernobyl disaster. The comparison is powerful, yet it pales against the performance of gold miners, which could keep gaining, acording to Wall Street analysts.
The most active Gold futures contract rose 19.3% for the first quarter after settling at $3150.30 on Monday, marking its best performance since the third quarter of 1986 when it gained 24%. Gold has now hit 18 closing highs in 2025. Demand is coming from central banks of countries such as China, which are buying up the shiny bar to lower their exposure to the U.S.
dollar—and the potential arm-twisting that comes with it—after the freezing of Russian central bank assets. Retail investors are also buying up gold at places like Costco, where bars are among the top sales categories, and through physically backed exchange-traded funds, which have seen a rise in assets under management. The gold rally has also fueled stocks of the companies mining it.
Gold miners, as measured by the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, are up 34% in 2025 so far, inclusive of dividends, outperforming gold and on pace for their best quarter in about five years. Miners’ returns lagged gold last quarter and they’ve underperformed gold by 17% over the past decade, suggesting a reversal in fortunes could be under way. “Gold stocks are finally working…will it continue?," UBS analyst Daniel Major titled his note Monday morning.
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