GOLD traded at record-high weekend prices in London on Friday, and silver topped $59 per Troy ounce for the first time in history, as European and US stock markets held near their own all-time highs and base metal copper hit fresh record prices at the London Metal Exchange amid questions of market fragmentation rather than hopes for a booming global economy.

With US futures still below copper's July record, hit on President Trump imposing import tariffs, "Copper is officially caught in a tug of war between bullish and cautious [outlooks]," says a trading note from Chinese giant and London bullion bank ICBC.

US financial giant Citigroup's new forecast sees copper at a record $13,000 per ton by mid-2026 "on the back of stronger growth expectations, tightening physical balances and tariff driven stockpiling" such as this week's dramatic "metals grab" by commodity traders Mercuria, apparently withdrawing around 1/3rd of total London Metal Exchange inventories, primarily from Asian warehouses.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs, in contrast, finds copper's current levels above $11,000 "hard to justify with inventories elevated and no true structural shortage seen before the back end of the decade."

Industrially-useful silver will again see a market deficit in 2026, specialist analysts Metals Focus predict. But the gap between supply and demand will ease further from the record deficit of 2022 thanks to silver's break of its 5-decade price top at $50 per Troy ounce.

Silver's "underlying tightness remains," said Metals Focus' director Philip Newman at this week's LBMA Annual Seminars.

But while mining supply is constrained by silver finding over 70% of its output as a byproduct of digging up other metals, overall silver industrial demand is edging back from this decade's run of new records.

That headline retreat, however, masks "a combination of long-term price impact" on photovoltaics − where solar energy installations use ever-less silver per unit - against a short-term impact on sectors such as the chemicals industry, both of which contrast with the boom in AI and data center use seeing "little immediate response".

Surging above $59 per Troy ounce in late London trade Friday, silver had already set a new all-time week-end price at London's midday auction, topping its record week-end fix of 17 October by more than $4/oz at around $58.15 per Troy ounce.

Silver's week-end fix price had previously topped at $49.45 on Friday, 18 January 1980 and then $48.70 on Easter Thursday, 28 April 2011.

With lease rates to borrow industrially-useful silver rebounding on Friday in London to 6.8% annualized for 1-month deals, outflows from Shanghai warehouses continue to suggest a growing supply crunch in world No.1 manufacturing economy China as the precious metal flows back into London following the spring's huge silver exports to the US, spurred by President Trump's trade tariffs threats and policies.

"Copper's bull run is as much about market fracture as it is about a straightforward supply crunch," says columnist Andy Home at news-wire Reuters, noting how "there is no copper supply crunch in the United States but there is growing tightness everywhere else in the world as metal continues to gravitate towards" the US amid continued uncertainty about whether President Trump will try to impose import tariffs on the metal, now deemed a 'critical mineral' together with silver, platinum and palladium.

"On the surface, global trade looks resilient," says the new 2026 outlook from the United Nations' trade and development division.

"Goods are moving, supply chains are adapting, and trade grew early 2025, even amid tariff hikes and geopolitical tensions. But under the surface lies a volatile system powering trade – built more on balance sheets and financial flows than on supply chains."

Gold prices meantime fixed around $4235 per Troy ounce at London's 3pm auction on Friday, over $10 per ounce above mid-October's record week-end benchmarking.

"I know there is no appetite for bearish news," says metals strategist Nicky Shiels at Swiss bullion refining and finance group MKS Pamp, "but there is some mega net selling in silver and gold [futures contrast] coming in Jan 2026" thanks to this year's 5-decade record price gains meaning that commodity-basket indices the S&P GSCI and Bloomberg's BCOM need rebalancing.

While silver's target weight in the BCOM index will be trimmed in January to 3.9% from last New Year's 4.5% level, the precious metal accounted for 7.1% of the index this time last week.

Gold has meantime reached 19.4% of the BCOM by value − busting the single commodity maximum of 15% and now given a 2026 target raised 0.6 percentage points from last New Year to 14.3%.