Metals Gaining Luster as Long-term Investments

Posted on March 10, 2026

Lately, we have observed significant volatility in the materials sector, principally in metals, which deserve some discussion. Essentially all metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, tin, copper, raw steel) had very strong performance in 2025 and that has continued thus far in 2026.

Monetary metals, gold and silver, have been considered money and reliable stores of value for ages. In fact, JP Morgan (the banker) once quipped that only gold is money, while everything else is credit. Gold and silver tend to be viewed as safe havens during periods of uncertainty, war, inflationary periods, financial distress, and sovereign credit/currency risk—all of which, to varying degrees, we see today.

But unlike gold, which has relatively little industrial use and thus is rarely consumed, silver and the other aforementioned metals have considerable industrial use (smartphones, computers, medical devices, solar, EV’s etc.), and they are consumed in those processes, rather than conserved.

We do not believe the price action in these metals is being driven by speculation, although speculation certainly exists in the space, drawn by the recent price performance. Rather, there are underlying secular demand drivers in these metals, principally AI and clean energy. The amount of energy needed to power the announced and anticipated AI infrastructure builds is simply breathtaking, and silver and copper (the best conductors of electricity) will be needed in bulk. And the silver industry, for example, has suffered from chronically low capital investment; in fact operating at a deficit mode for several years, with marginal demand being met through global inventory draw-downs.

Many, if not all, of the AI data centers will also be equipped with solar panels and silver is significant raw material in every panel. Further, Samsung is likely to commercialize the first silver anode solid state battery in 2027 (for EV use), and recently announced a two-year exclusive forward purchase agreement with a miner for all its production. In the lab, this battery produced an 80% charge and a mileage range of 600 miles, in under 10 minutes charging time. If these batteries perform similarly in the real world as in development, it will remove two of the impediments to EV adoption (charge time and range), in turn driving consumer adoption and a virtuous demand cycle for silver.

In summary, the fundamental drivers of the metals’ performance appear justified and likely to continue, but as commodities they will have considerable volatility as investments.

Edwin C. Ciskowski MAcc, CPA, CTFA
SVP | Senior Portfolio Manager