Gold prices advanced for a fourth consecutive day on Monday, reaching a four-week high as a dramatic escalation of war in the Middle East sent investors scrambling for protection.
Spot gold climbed as much as 2.7% to top $5,400 an ounce, building on a 3% gain from the previous week.
Silver and other precious metals followed the upward trend as cross-asset volatility spiked.
The immediate catalyst for the rally was the weekend's geopolitical upheaval.
Coordinated military strikes by the U.S. and Israel targeted high-level Iranian sites, resulting in the death of the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Tehran responded with waves of missile barrages hitting targets across Israel and several neighboring countries housing American military bases, including Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
The conflict has transformed an already bullish gold market into a full-blown safe-haven stampede.
Bullion has gained approximately 25% year-to-date, supported by a combination of central-bank buying and a broader shift away from sovereign bonds.
Analysts from the Franklin Templeton Institute, led by Stephen Dover, noted that in environments where market sentiment is driven by "risk-premium first, fundamentals later," gold remains the preferred hedge, recommending selective exposure over broad equity shorts.
The geopolitical landscape has been further complicated by the aggressive foreign policy of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration recently seized Venezuela’s then-president Nicolás Maduro and signaled intent toward Greenland.
With the current Middle East deployment marking the largest U.S. military presence in the region since 2003, gold posted its seventh consecutive monthly gain in February, its longest winning streak since 1973.
The impact of the war rippled into energy markets as well.
Oil prices surged by the most in four years on Monday morning following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
While crude later pared some gains, a drone strike on a Saudi Aramco refinery triggered a secondary spike.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.7% as the greenback also benefited from defensive positioning, even as Iran’s national security chief, Ali Larijani, declared on social media that Tehran would not enter negotiations with Washington.