The Greatland Gold (LSE: GGP) share price just won’t stop. When I last wrote about the AIM-listed mining company on 10 March, the shares were flying to the stars. Since then, they’ve only climbed higher.

Greatland Gold shares are now up 53% over one month and 108% over the last year. Those are stunning returns. And it’s not hard to see what’s driving them. Gold fever!

The gold price recently smashed through $3,000 an ounce for the first time ever, as nervous investors pile into the world’s ultimate safe haven. It’s up 35% in a year.

Can this stock go higher?

This time, the trigger is Donald Trump’s threatened trade tariffs. Stock indexes have shrugged off crisis after crisis in recent years, but this one is really getting to them.

The greater the uncertainty, the higher Greatland Gold shares climb. But it’s not entirely a play on stock market volatility.

The London-listed company, which has gold and copper projects in Australia, got a further lift from a bullish update on 18 March.

This featured a major upgrade to its mineral resource estimates, following the inclusion of the recently acquired Telfer gold-copper mine.

Greatland Gold now holds group mineral resources totalling 10.2m ounces of gold and 387,000 tonnes of copper, up more than 40%.

There could be more. The company is ramping up drilling, with four rigs already operating and two more on the way.

Managing director Shaun Day hailed the Telfer estimate as an “outstanding result” and “exceptional foundation” for the company’s future.

He added that “the upcoming June 2025 quarter is a very exciting one for Greatland, in which we will report our first full quarter operating results for the March 2025 quarter, give production and costs guidance for 2025, deliver our inaugural Telfer Ore Reserve estimate, and list on the ASX.”

This was an encouraging update, but let’s be clear — what really matters right now is the gold price.

And it’s on an absolute tear.

High hopes, high investment risks

Last month, I called Greatland Gold a “binary” play. When gold soars, Greatland flies. When gold falls, well, guess.

The four analysts covering the stock have a median one-year price target of 18.26p. If correct, that’s another 48% higher than today.

Forecasts are slithery things at the best of times. Given Trump’s mercurial tactics, this one is as slithery and as slippery as they get.

Gold isn’t a one-way bet. It’s already climbed steeply. If Trump pulls back on tariffs, stock markets could rally and gold’s surge could unwind just as quickly.

There’s also the risk that investors start taking profits, triggering a sharp pullback.

Greatland Gold remains a high-risk, high-reward play. Investors should sweep aside past performance figures, and work out exactly what they are buying, and why.

It may be worth considering for a small nugget in a broadly diversified portfolio. But the higher the Greatland Gold share price climbs, the faster it could fall. For consideration by risk-takers only.