Current gold price rally: third strongest in the last 50 years

In 2025, the US gold price has seen a 56 percent rise, from US$2,620 to just over 4,000. Its increase was less pronounced in the Eurozone, from €80.77 to its current level of 113.36 – still a substantial 40.9 percent. Since the current gold rally kicked off in the US in 2022, gold has actually appreciated 170 percent. An unprecedented price rally? Far from it: since the end of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, which ended dollar convertibility to gold, two gold rallies have proven even stronger.

Gold price rises by 518 percent between July 1976 and February 1980  

The second half of the 1970s in particular was marked by various crises with global repercussions, among them long-held concerns about a second oil price crisis, which materialized in 1979. It caused rising inflation rates in industrialized countries, as well as a growing mountain of debt in many countries, especially the US. At the same time, the Cold War as well as increased terrorist activity by groups such as the RAF in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, and ETA in Spain shook people and markets alike. During this period, the gold price rose more than fivefold, from US$123 to 646.

Gold price up 643 percent from February 2001 to September 2011

Over a period of more than ten years, the world experienced the unprecedented terrorist attacks of 9/11, the global financial crisis from 2007 to 2009 and, following on from that, the Euro crisis in 2011. Gold had become increasingly important as a safe haven since the end of the Bretton-Woods system, rising from US$262 to over 1,800 during the prolonged price rally. While the current gold price rally started more than three years ago and may not be over, it is unlikely to catch up with the two previous prolonged rallies of the late 1970s and the 2000s.