Gold futures dropped to about $3,890 an ounce, a 52-week low, and silver fell more than 6% to below $50. Both moves ran against falling yields and a softer dollar, the conditions that usually lift precious metals.
On a day built for gold, gold fell.
Gold futures were down about 3.5% at roughly $3,890 an ounce in early afternoon Friday, touching a low of $3,889.60, its lowest level in 52 weeks. Silver fell about 6.3% to about $49.06, below $50 for the first time since November 2025. The largest gold ETF was down about 3.4%.
The surrounding market should have helped. The 10-year Treasury yield fell about 5 basis points to its lowest in seven weeks. The dollar index slipped about 0.35%. Stocks sold off, with the Nasdaq down about 3%. Brent crude rose nearly 3% on a day when a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was hit by explosive devices attached by a small boat, according to UKMTO. Each of those conditions has, at other times, pushed investors toward bullion.
Two explanations
The first is forced selling. Investors needing cash tend to sell what they can, and gold is liquid. Friday brought plenty of those: semiconductor stocks fell about 8%, and roughly $1.6 billion of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours after the Binance breach. Losses on one book can force sales in another.
The second is the Fed. A December rate increase is still priced at about three in four, and the inflation-adjusted 10-year Treasury yield is about 2.59%. High real yields raise the cost of holding an asset that pays no income.
Friday's market partly cuts against that second explanation. Nominal yields and the dollar both fell, which should have eased pressure on gold rather than added to it. That leaves forced selling as the reading more consistent with the day's moves, though the two are not mutually exclusive.
Why it matters
If gold is behaving like a risk asset in this selloff, portfolios that hold it as a hedge against equity drawdowns are getting less protection than they assumed. Silver, with its larger industrial component, has fallen even harder.
What to watch
Whether gold holds above Friday's low into the Nov. 6 jobs report, the path of December rate expectations, and whether the selling eases once crypto and equity volatility calm.