Silver, gold surge as Iran bets shift

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump’s tariff plan from last spring is unconstitutional.

At the same time, gold and silver rose in futures trading.

But the two events aren’t really related.

They have more to do with what’s going on, first, in industry and, second, in the Middle East. And the odds are that prices will be volatile into the next week or so while the Trump Administration weighs a possible attack on Iran.

After that, bulls are sure silver will remain strong in 2026, but perhaps not as feverishly high as it was in January.

Earlier in February, JPMorgan Chase raised its price target on silver to $81 an ounce.

Silver shot past that target on Friday, trading above $82, up nearly 6% on the week.

That’s down nearly 38% from its peak price of $121.785 per troy ounce on Jan. 29 as silver trading morphed from bullish to absolutely feverish.

Silver fell to as low as $72 an ounce on Feb. 16 but has rallied since for three reasons:

Worries about possible Persian Gulf hostilities have generated a move to safe assets in many markets for a second time in the last 12 months. Gold and silver tend to win when geopolitical worries shoot higher.

The confidence that continued expansion of data centers and computer systems to handle artificial intelligence applications will continue to be strong. Silver is a key component used in these industries.

The Supreme Court ruling will do nothing to limit growth in U.S. government deficits and deficits in other countries, Bloomberg noted. So, central banks will continue to buy gold and silver as hedges. The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen more than 10% since the end of 2024. The index measures the dollar against a basket of currencies.

Related: J.P. Morgan revamps silver stock price target for 2026

As gold and silver rose, many related investments moved higher. Exchange-traded fund that buy precious metals moved up. So did mining and related stocks, especially those concentrated on silver. The list includes:

iShares Silver Trust ETF, up 7.9%.

SPDR Gold Shares ETC, up 1.9%.

Global X Silver Miners ETF, up 4.4%

Hecla Mining, up 5.2%.

Pan American Silver, up 5.8%.

Freeport-McMoRan, up 2.6%.

The one gold stock that wasn’t doing well was Newmont Corp., down 2.6% after warning that 2026 production might decline a bit from 2025.

More Gold & Silver:

Silver jumped 145% or so in 2025, and gold was up 65%. Both have risen an additional 16.5% so far in 2026.

Stocks finished the week largely higher because of bullishness around technology and technology-related stocks.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 1% on the week. The Nasdaq added 1.5%.

Six of the seven Magnificent Seven stocks were higher  — Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla. Microsoft fell 0.3%.

Related: Trump hikes new tariffs to 15%

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Feb 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.