There's a renewed interest in gold and it's coming with dollar signs. The price is now above $4,000 an ounce for the first time ever.
There are numerous reasons why gold spikes. One of the most common is demand, which is currently the case.
But should people buy - or sell? Mike Korstad with the Minnesota Gold and Silver Exchange has an opinion.
"A lot more people selling here in the last probably even six months," says Korstad. "I mean, the price has been kind of steadily going up in gold and silver for months. So you see people, 'oh, we've hit a number, I'm going to sell.' Because again, these people might have bought five, ten years ago at a lower price. They see profit that they could take."
Compared to this time last year, Korstad says his store has been much busier.
"You know, it's also the news media, it's social media, it's all the different places that you're hearing about it and seeing it," he adds. "That also drives people's interest in coming in. But yeah, we've seen a pretty good jump in business every day."
With all the economic uncertainty looming over this country Korstad says he's definitely noticed an influx in transactions.
"There's just so many things in the news and what is this decision that's being made? How does that impact this and when will that impact that? And then you throw in just recently, the government shutdown, you throw that as just an extra twist," he says. "I mean, we have people that work for the government. They were customers of mine, and they were almost immediately coming in."
Korstad says those people sold a few things just to be safe, in case the shutdown continues.
Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek secure investments for their money. Even before the shutdown, the asset — and other metals, like silver — had seen wide gains over the last year, as President Donald Trump ’s barrage of tariffs cause uncertainty around the outlook for the global economy. More recently, the prospect of lower interest rates has also made gold a more attractive investment than interest-bearing investments.