Never forget: correlation is not causation. While 2025 was a very good year to own either precious metals or the FTSE 100, the rise in the former had a limited impact on the latter.
Big gains in the market value of London’s shiniest miners, Fresnillo (FRES) and Endeavour (EDV), accounted for two-fifths of the basic resources sector’s total increase. But even within a group that includes giants such as Rio Tinto (RIO) and Glencore (GLEN), the 38 per cent climb in value over the year only amounted to an eighth of the index’s overall jump.
So even as the gold and silver stocks rocketed, they made up just one of the 22-percentage-point rise in the Footsie. This means £100 invested in the FTSE 100 now gets you about £1.28 of direct exposure to gold and silver – crudely expressed as the £32.7bn combined market capitalisation of Fresnillo and Endeavour.