Investing in precious metals has never been more popular on world-leading marketplace BullionVault, with investor sentiment shrugging off last month’s sudden volatility before the Middle East war began.
So far in 2026, the daily count of first-time investors on BullionVault − the West London fintech now caring for over £7.9 billion of physical precious metals for its global client base − is running 559.2% ahead of the previous 10 years’ daily average.
That’s taken the number of people who own securely-stored gold almost one-fifth higher from this time last year (+19.6%). The number of silver owners has jumped twice as quickly (+40.1%), also growing the fastest since spring 2021 marked the first anniversary of the pandemic lockdowns.
“While short-term conflict rarely drives bullion prices higher, the new Middle East war gives investors another reason to seek shelter as it destabilizes financial markets and the global economy,” says BullionVault director of research Adrian Ash.
“The long-term drivers of today’s precious metals’ bull market remain firmly in place, from ballooning government debt to fears of inflation, worries over the bubble in tech stocks, and the breakdown of geopolitical order.”
Ahead of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, gold prices swung in February with the greatest volatility since the Lehman’s banking crash of 2008. But the ‘safe haven’ metal still rose to a new month-average UK Pound record for the 19th month in a row, extending the precious metal’s historic run at £3696 per Troy ounce.
The total number of people buying gold on BullionVault’s 24/7 marketplace retreated by 14.1% last month from January’s all-time high, while the number of sellers fell 31.1% from the record it also set this New Year.
Together, that put the Gold Investor Index just 0.1 points below January’s 62-month high, reading 58.4 as the number of investors who now own gold rose yet again, setting its 9th fresh all-time high in a row as March began.
February saw silver volatility jump to the most violent since 1987, but it was the first month in 9 that the more industrially-useful precious metal didn’t set a fresh month-average record in UK Pound terms, dropping 10.7% to £60.77 per Troy ounce.
The total number of people buying silver on BullionVault fell 20.7% from January’s record high, while the number of sellers fell 35.2% from this New Year’s record. That put the Silver Investor Index at 63.7, lower by 2.0 points from January’s 69-month high.
Investor demand for silver outweighed profit-taking for the first time in 6 months, reversing a quarter of January’s heavy net-selling and edging total client holdings 0.6% higher to 1,332 tonnes, now worth £2.4 billion − a rise of 165.7% from 12 months ago.
Gold holdings in contrast fell in February for the 4th month running by weight, dropping 0.3% to the lightest in 69 months just below 43.4 tonnes.
But while BullionVault users − 9-in-10 of whom live in Western Europe or North America − have trimmed the quantity of gold they own as a group by 1.8% over the past 12 months, it has jumped 69.5% by value in UK Pound terms to a record of more than £5.4 billion.
Says Ash: “Gold and silver have never been more popular, not in the 21 years since BullionVault first opened. Existing owners continue using the spikes to take a little profit. New investors are using the dips to start and build their holdings.”
If not for January’s peak, February would have set an all-time monthly record for the number of first-time precious metal investors, with last month’s count dropping 41.1% from the New Year’s fresh all-time high.
The value of physical metal changing hands on BullionVault meanwhile retreated by 31.9% from January’s new all-time record to total £581 million.
