Gold resumed its charge this afternoon after the price faltered this morning on hopes of diplomatic progress between Russia and Ukraine.
The price fell to $1972 per troy ounce in early trading after soaring to $2070 earlier in the week, spurred by a looming clampdown on Russian oil imports.
But the price was back on the climb this afternoon after Russia-Ukraine talks yielded little progress and left investors scrambling for steady ground once again.
The traditional safe-haven asset was trading at around $2007 per troy ounce at 14:20GMT on Thursday.
Investors have piled into the precious metal in the hope of high returns amid turbulent markets since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, with prices nearly topping an all-time high on Tuesday amid a volatile day on equity markets.
New accounts at BullionVault, the world's largest online investment service for gold, have risen at the fastest rate since March 2020 this week when markets were sent into a spin in the first wave of the pandemic.
Analysts say the price had temporarily slumped today as investors looked hopefully on for diplomatic progress between Russia and Ukraine in talks held today.
"Gold was not in demand as a safe haven yesterday and dropped by around 3.5 per for a time, dipping significantly below the $2,000 per troy ounce mark and shedding all of the gains it had accrued the day before," said Dainel Briesemann, analysts at Commerzbank.
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Silver, another perceived safe-haven asset, rebounded to trade at around $25.95 per ounce this afternoon after it surged to $26.95 on Wednesday.
Analysts say silver's utility has helped it avoid some of the volatility of the gold price.
"Silver's more industrial use, including in photovoltaic cells for example that are likely to see increased demand amid the energy transition, has seen silver benefit from both its haven appeal as well as the whole metals complex being pulled up," said Rupert Rowling, market analysts at trading platform Kinesis Money.
By City AM
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