Silver Shines Brighter Than Gold. Why That May Be a Warning.
Dec 29, 2025 06:51:00 -0500 | #Markets #The Barron's Daily
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The stock market may be in sleepy holiday mode, but precious metals are wide-awake, with silver seeing feverish trading to end a record 2025.
Silver has rallied more than 150% this year, with prices breaking through a 45-year ceiling in October and not looking back. The white metal gained again to start the week, jumping to a new record above $80 an ounce on Sunday.
Silver’s surge has even outshined gold, which is also near record highs after rising 70% this year. While both rallies have similarities, investors may want to avoid grouping the two precious metals together—because silver is its own beast.
Gold and silver are physical stores of value that investors can view as a hedge against the U.S. dollar, and both metals have grown shinier as the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cuts have weakened the dollar.
There is some evidence that investors have flocked to physical silver as gold has grown more expensive, and that both metals have lured traders away from that so-called digital gold—Bitcoin.
But silver also has applications that fit the moment, including demand from solar panel factories as well as electric-vehicle manufacturers and data centers that power artificial intelligence.
This strategic value can add to volatility: prices recently jumped ahead of China’s new export restrictions, which Elon Musk warned last week was “not good” because of silver’s use in many industrial processes.
Volatility is impossible to escape with silver, which has a bizarre trading history, including an infamous attempt by two brothers to corner the entire market in 1980.
The white metal has a loyal fan base that seems to swell during periods of market frenzy, such as a bull run in 2021 amid the GameStop “meme stock” phenomenon.
That type of hype can disappear just as fast as it makes prices surge, and investors considering swapping gold for silver must bear that in mind. Silver tumbled back to around $75 on Monday in characteristic volatility—one that is rarely seen in gold.
—Jack Denton
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U.S., Ukraine Talks Yield Progress but No Breakthrough
President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky met at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday to discuss a 20-point proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine War. Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin beforehand and pressed him to make a deal.
- “Our meeting was excellent,” Trump said in a video posted by the White House. He said he and Zelensky discussed just about every subject, went into great detail on what they discussed, and “made a lot of progress on ending that war.”
- Three things that Zelensky said he and Trump agreed on: security guarantees are key to a lasting peace; a meeting between their teams as early as next week to finalize matters; and a Washington summit of Ukrainian and European leaders, hosted by Trump. “Ukraine is ready for peace,” he wrote on social media.
- Ukraine won’t agree to the territorial concessions that Putin has demanded, including the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky added. The U.S. has proposed making the Donetsk region a demilitarized “free economic zone.”
- On Saturday, Russia launched drones, missiles, and aerial bombs to take out power plants in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Zelensky said the attack showed Putin isn’t serious about a peace agreement.
What’s Next: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Europe’s shared goal as “a just and lasting peace that preserves Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and promised that members would keep pressuring the Kremlin, supporting Ukraine, and work with Ukraine on its path toward EU membership.
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Bernie Sanders Gets Tough on AI, Calls Out Musk Bezos
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Katie Britt hold fundamentally opposite political views but are united in turning up the heat on artificial intelligence.
- On Sunday, both called out Big Tech and Congress for not doing enough to protect Americans from the risks of what Sanders called “the most consequential technology of our lifetime.”
- Sanders, an independent from Vermont, came down hard on Big Tech’s biggest names, telling CNN’s State of the Union that the wealthiest—X owner Elon Musk, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for example—are pushing AI “to get richer and more powerful.”
- Britt, an Alabama Republican and mother of two teenagers, told host Jake Tapper that there are many parents like her worried about AI, particularly on social media. In a survey released in early December, the Pew Research Institute found that 64% of U.S. teens use chatbots and a third use them every day.
- Both senators want members of Congress to stop dragging their feet on AI. Britt is co-sponsoring a measure to protect minors from chatbots and Sanders called for an in-depth study of AI’s impact on America’s mental health.
What’s Next: Sanders is worried the very foundation of the country: “These guys have unbelievable wealth, unbelievable power. What does that mean to the future of democracy?” Britt is disappointed in Washington: “Looking at what’s happening on these machines and these devices, we have got to do better and be better.”
— Melanie Gray
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Hollywood Makes Last Big Push as Avatar Tops Box Office Again
The weekend’s movies brought in an estimated $177.2 million in domestic ticket sales, making this year’s estimated total of $8.7 billion better than last year’s but still short of Hollywood’s $9 billion revenue target.
- Walt Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash stayed No. 1 at the domestic box office for a second straight weekend, raking in another $64 million and bringing its total ticket sales to an estimated $217.7 million since its Dec. 19 debut, according to media analytics company Comscore.
- James Cameron’s sci-fi fantasy was also the biggest cinema draw on Christmas, with $24 million in domestic ticket sales— 35.3% of the day’s totals. The film sold another $542.7 million internationally, for a $760.4 million worldwide total.
- Only two of the 10 films that opened on Christmas made the domestic top 10: Sony Pictures’ Anaconda, with $23.7 million through Sunday, and Focus Features’ Song Sung Blue, with $12 million. The Christmas box office grossed $68 million, compared with $69.9 million in 2024.
- Disney’s Zootopia 2, which opened on Nov. 26, sold another $20 million, bringing its total domestic box office to an estimated $321.4 million, Comscore said. International ticket sales brought in another $1.1 billion, for a worldwide total of $1.4 billion.
What’s Next: Comscore now projects a final annual domestic box office of $8.9 billion. Paul Dergarabedian, the company’s head of marketplace trends, expects the 2026 domestic box office to surpass $9 billion, with “an absolutely brilliant lineup of potential blockbusters.”
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Cathie Wood’s ARK Funds Are Crushing the Market in 2025
Cathie Wood’s ARK funds have crushed the market in 2025, for the third consecutive year. While there’s no guarantee it’ll happen again in 2026, her recent trades are a good indication of her bets on the year ahead.
- The ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund has climbed 40% this year, while the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF is also up 40%, heading into Monday’s trading. In comparison, the S&P 500 has risen 18%. It will be the third straight year the Next Generation Internet fund has convincingly beaten the market.
- The fund’s top holdings are Tesla, streaming tech company Roku, AI chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, e-commerce platform Shopify, trading platform Robinhood Markets, and crypto exchange Coinbase Global.
- ARK Invest’s recent purchases suggest Wood is making a big bet on a cryptocurrency rebound in 2026. In December, ARK’s funds have aggressively bought up shares in companies exposed to crypto amid a brutal selloff for the sector sparked by Bitcoin’s slump.
- China is another area of interest for Wood—specifically the country’s megacap tech names. ARK bought Alibaba shares in September for the first time since 2021 and it has also piled back into Baidu and Chinese robo-taxi company WeRide.
What’s Next: A word of warning for investors, though. ARK doesn’t always beat the market, particularly on the way down. In 2022, the last year it failed to outperform the S&P 500, ARK’s Innovation ETF tumbled 67% compared to the stock market index’s 19% drop.
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—Newsletter edited by Melanie Gray, Callum Keown