It’s another bad day for gold and silver. Traders in precious metals are seeing both gold and silver plummet significantly as the week kicks off, with gold down nearly 7% and silver down 8% over the past 24 hours.
Worse, gold has now fallen nearly 20% since its all-time high of over $5,586 in January. Silver is down even more, falling more than 44% since its all-time high earlier this year of over $121. Here’s what you need to know.
The ‘safe haven’ trade is absent
Silver and especially gold are generally considered “safe haven” assets—assets investors turn to when economic uncertainty abounds, and they want to park their money in a valuable that isn’t likely to fluctuate much, or at least not go down in value significantly.
Safe haven assets like gold and silver contrast with other assets like stocks and cryptocurrencies, which are traditionally more volatile, especially in times of economic uncertainty.
Given their safe-haven status, it’s natural to assume that the geopolitical and economic uncertainty unleashed by President Trump’s war in Iran over the past two weeks would cause investors to flock to gold and silver.
But just the opposite has happened. After both metals hit all-time highs earlier this year, they have slowly lost value, and their sell-off has only intensified with the breakout of the Iranian war.
That incongruity has left many scratching their heads, asking “why?”
