It might be hard to tell by looking at the stock market, but investors are living in a new era of geopolitical risk.
While equity markets have largely shrugged off the latest geopolitical shocks, the last few years of hot and cold wars have rewired commodities. From Ukraine to Venezuela, ongoing and emerging conflicts have impacted everything from oil to gold to copper.
“Geopolitical risk has always influenced commodity prices, but it is increasingly acting as a persistent pricing factor rather than a transitory shock,” a team of commodities researchers at Oxford Economics wrote. “While acute events can still trigger sharp price moves, markets now tend to embed a standing risk premium reflecting ongoing supply-chain fragility, trade fragmentation, and resource nationalism.”
Ultimately, conflict is becoming a permanent pricing mechanism rather than a temporary blip on traders’ radars.
“As a result, geopolitical considerations are more systematically incorporated into pricing, investment decisions, and procurement strategies across many commodity markets, rather than being quickly priced out once an event fades from headlines,” they added.
Many traders and experts say the start of this new era for commodity markets began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In nearly four years since then, the world has seen fresh fighting across the Middle East, rising tensions between China and Taiwan, and, most recently, the surprise US raid on Venezuela.
These episodes have been potent drivers of gold’s rapid rally. Investors have flocked to the safe-haven metal as forecasters see the potential for further conflicts through the rest of this decade.
Flare-ups across the Middle East between Israel and Iran and a two-year war between Israel and Hamas have only heightened gold’s status as a hedge, while also boosting silver.
“We’re going to have a lot of geopolitical uncertainty,” said Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, an economic policy think tank. “When you get that, you get movement into precious metals as one of the safe havens. But added to that is the United States reliability as a partner to question is called into question.”
Oil is an outlier in the new era, with prices steadily sliding even as geopolitical forces send investors flocking to other commodities. Crude fell 20% in 2025, with the summer’s Israel-Iran conflict only causing a brief jump in the price of Brent.
Still, energy investors are once again being forced to digest the potential for new conflicts to impact the market, mulling the potential for the US takeover of Venezuela to increase supply down the road.
Jeff Le, a managing principal at consulting firm 100 Mile Strategies, agrees that a new era has arrived for commodities.
Speaking with Business Insider, he highlighted how quickly the landscape appears to be shifting, pointing to rising prices not just of precious metals but of industrials as well.
“The surge of industrial metals over the last year, including gold to over $4,000 represents gains not seen in over four decades,” he told Business Insider. “This rush could be representative of a new chapter of the commodities market.”
Both Le and Lachman noted the possibility of the US’ action in Venezuela setting a new precedent for geopolitical action, highlighting its importance as a driving force for commodities.
“The Trump administration and growing global tensions appear to be more of a feature than a bug,” Le noted. “With three more years to follow, it’s possible that geopolitical risk is not only a permanent consideration in the commodities market but a more important weight to investors.”