Gold is having its best year since 1979. Here’s why the price might keep hitting new highs.

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I am Boston Globe financial columnist Larry Edelman . Today, gold is glittering for investors, but how long can it last?

➕ There’s a new class of “genius” award winners.

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In April, our financial adviser did something new: He put my wife and me in gold.

I’d always dismissed gold as a fringe asset for people obsessed with inflation or convinced the world is ending. But it’s been the best year for the yellow metal since 1979. The spot price closed above $4,000 an ounce for the first time this week, up more than 50 percent for the year and nearly 150 percent since 2022.

Gold has outshined bitcoin, US stocks, and balanced funds. And most analysts think the rally isn’t over. Goldman Sachs just raised its forecast to $4,900 an ounce by the end of next year — another 21 percent gain from Wednesday’s $4,042 close.

“Even when adjusted for inflation, gold is at an all-time high,” said Jack Ablin, CFA , chief investment strategist at Cresset Capital. “But it’s still not too late” to add it to a portfolio.

Why are investors piling in? Three reasons:

Insurance. Gold is a traditional hedge against inflation, a falling dollar, and financial turmoil — all of which are worrying investors now. Inflation is expected to hover around 3 percent, the dollar is on track for its worst year in five decades, and Washington’s fiscal battles are fueling uncertainty. “People are looking for ways to de-dollarize or de-risk their portfolios,” hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin told a Bloomberg conference. Silver has surged for similar reasons.

Diversification. Gold often rises when stocks fall or bond yields decline. Because it’s priced in dollars, it typically gains value when the greenback weakens — both because it takes more dollars to buy the same ounce and because it becomes cheaper for foreign buyers.

Our adviser, Alexander Burke, CFP® of Financial Solutions Associates in Dedham, bought a gold exchange-traded fund for us in April. It’s up 28 percent. The position represents just 6 percent of our IRA.

“Don’t put all your eggs into one golden basket, use it as a small part of a well-diversified portfolio,” he said in an email. “Even if you are entering at the top, if you limit the allocation to a small part of a portfolio you will limit your potential losses, but still have plenty of upside if gold soars.”

Market trends. Central banks have been boosting gold reserves since the Great Recession, a trend that accelerated after Western sanctions froze Russia’s foreign currency assets in 2022. With falling rates, swelling deficits, and fears of an AI-fueled stock bust, demand is likely to remain strong.

Final thought. Gold supply grows only 2 percent a year, so even modest demand can lift prices sharply. No investment is foolproof, but as insurance against inflation and instability, gold’s luster looks far from fading.

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🧠 The Closer

I’ve got better odds of winning the lottery than receiving a “genius” award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Each year, the foundation selects a group of “extraordinarily” creative people to receive $800,000 over five years to fund their work.

Four New Englanders are among this year’s 22 recipients:

Lauren K. Williams, 47, a Harvard University mathematician whose research is in algebraic combinatorics and also contributed to solving problems in other areas through interdisciplinary collaborations.

Ieva Jusionyte, 41, a Brown University cultural anthropologist whose diverse ethnographies investigate the ethical and practical issues that national border policies create for workers and communities who live in border regions.

Jeremy Frey, 46, an Eddington, Maine, artist whose mastery of Wabanaki basket weaving both carries on traditional practices and finds new possibilities in the materials and techniques.

Margaret Wickens Pearce, 60, a Rockland, Maine, cartographer whose maps document the relationships of Indigenous people in North America to their land and that narrate histories, incorporate knowledge, and detail the ongoing dispossession of Native people.

📆 On this date in 2009, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

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