"I should have bought it earlier"…'100 million → 250 million won' record-breaking surge

Gold price breaks 4,500 dollars · Silver price breaks 70 dollars…Record highs for consecutive days

Surge as U.S. invasion of Venezuela intensifies

As the United States increases force deployments in the Caribbean and military tensions between the United States and Venezuela escalate, prices of precious metals such as gold and silver hit record highs on the 23rd (local time).

On that day at the New York Mercantile Exchange, the February delivery gold futures settlement price closed 0.8% higher at 4,505.7 dollars per ounce, surpassing the 4,500-dollar level.

According to Bloomberg, the spot price of gold reached an all-time high of 4,525.77 dollars per ounce as of 10:21 a.m. KST on the 24th and was trading at 4,498.68 dollars as of 2 p.m. that day.

The Trump administration, after sinking vessels of drug cartels operating in the Caribbean, recently began seizing tankers to block oil exports, a major source of revenue for the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

President Trump has raised the possibility of conducting military operations against drug cartels on Venezuelan soil.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that U.S. forces have reinforced deployments to the Caribbean, including special operations aircraft, amplifying geopolitical tensions.

The spot price of silver was 72.2310 dollars as of 2 p.m. KST on the 24th.

According to Reuters, the spot price of silver earlier hit a record high, rising more than 3% intraday to 71.49 dollars per ounce and breaking the 70-dollar level per ounce.

So far this year, gold and silver prices have risen by about 70% and 150% respectively, marking the largest annual gains since the oil price surge following Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Shin Min-kyung Hankyung.com reporter radio@hankyung.com