Precious metals plunge as Middle East war rattles markets

Key topics:Gold plunges as war fuels inflation, rate hike fearsInvestors sell gold for cash; biggest drop since 1983Silver sinks 10% as volatility hits global markets.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Yihui Xie.Gold more than wiped out this year’s gains, falling for a ninth day as the war in the Middle East added inflationary risk and raised expectations for higher interest rates. Silver tumbled more than 10% at one point.Spot gold plunged as much as 8.8% to near $4,100 an ounce. Since the conflict began, surging energy prices have raised expectations for rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. This is a headwind for non-yielding gold, which has just posted its biggest weekly drop since 1983. .“Gold has a liquidity issue,” said Johan Jooste, chief executive officer of Pangaea Wealth AG. The rapid selloff was driven by investors’ need to raise cash, and there would be further downside risk for bullion if the war continued to escalate, he said.Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump gave Iran a two-day deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or have its power plants bombed. Iran countered that it would close the strategic waterway “completely” and target energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure if its power facilities come under attack. Trump’s ultimatum came at 7:44 p.m. New York time on Saturday..Read more:.The $108 oil test: Can the Middle East trigger a worldwide economic shock?.Selloffs have deepened across various types of gold assets. The aggregate open interest for gold futures on Comex has plunged to the lowest level since 2018, showing the wash-out of speculative positions. Holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds — a popular investment method for institutional and retail investors — have also flipped to a net outflow of around 11 tons since the start of this year. “The magnitude of gold’s selloff is not unprecedented, but the pace of the selloff has been much quicker than on many historical occasions,” said Wayne Gordon, an investment adviser at the wealth-management unit of UBS Group AG.As gold plummeted in exceptionally volatile trading, crude fluctuated near the highest close since mid-2022 and equity markets were also difficult to predict. In the three weeks since the war began on Feb. 28, bullion’s decline has been driven partly by forced selling as investors seek to cover losses elsewhere in their portfolios. The metal ended last year at $4,319.37 an ounce and spiked to an all-time high above $5,595 an ounce in late January.Gold’s reaction “to the current macro-economic shock has a clear market precedent,” said David Wilson, director of commodities strategy at BNP Paribas SA. “If you look at all three previous economic-shock cycles – in 2008, 2020 and 2022 – gold initially fell as markets reacted to news flow, with investors typically selling assets to hold the US dollar,” he said, adding that all three periods were followed by a sustained rally.Bullion’s 14-day relative-strength index — a gauge of momentum — extended a fall below 30, a level that some traders see as indicating it’s oversold. Meanwhile, hedge funds and other large speculators increased their net-long position for gold to the highest in seven weeks as of March 17, weekly US government data published Friday showed.Spot gold fell 5.7% to $4,240.71 an ounce at 8:12 a.m. in London. Silver slid 4.5% to $64.93. Platinum and palladium also fell. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, a gauge of the US currency, rose 0.3%..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Precious metals plunge as Middle East war rattles markets

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