Washington
\nGold and silver prices have continued to fall after a dramatic reversal of a rally that had pushed precious metals to record highs.
\nSpot gold prices fell nearly 10% at one point while silver slumped by 15% before both metals recovered some ground.
\nPrices had hit fresh records in January as investors parked money in so-called \u201csafe haven\u201d assets due to geopolitical uncertainties.
\nMarkets had also been worried about the independence of the US Federal Reserve, but metals prices fell on Friday after President Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, a former central bank governor, to be its new chair.
\nAfter plunging in Asian trade on Monday, gold then recovered to stand at $4,790 an ounce, down more than 2% on the day. Silver also rebounded to $82.50 an ounce, a fall of 3.2%.
\nThe naming of Warsh on Friday had been welcomed in general by the financial markets and triggered a 1% rise in the value of the US dollar.
\nWhile the dollar ticked up, spot gold on Friday recorded its sharpest one-day drop since 1983 with a fall of more than 9%, while silver plunged 27%.
\n\u201cThe clear catalyst for Friday\u2019s sell-off appeared to be news\u2026 that Kevin Warsh had secured the nomination for Fed chair,\u201d said analysts at Deutsche Bank.
\nAnother reason cited for the slump was changes to trading requirements for precious metals on a major exchange, which made it more expensive for speculators to trade.
\nDespite the sharp falls, the price of gold has only fallen back to where it was a couple of weeks ago and it is still about 70% higher than it was at the same point last year.
\nAs well as a continued sell-off among commodities on Monday, Asian stocks also fell, with South Korea\u2019s benchmark Kospi leading losses with a 5% fall. Elsewhere in the region, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 2% and Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 was more than 1% lower.
\nIn Europe, the UK\u2019s FTSE 100 index fell at first, but then recovered to rise 1%. The fall in commodity prices put mining companies under pressure, and gold miners Fresnillo and Endeavour Mining were down by more than 2%.
\nUS stock markets dipped at first but then saw modest gains with the S&P 500 index up 0.1%.
\nIn global energy markets, the price of crude oil fell nearly 5%. This is attributed to a number of factors including major oil producers agreeing to keep output unchanged and signs of de-escalating tensions between the US and Iran.
\nThe rise in the value of the US dollar may also have had an impact, as the oil price is denominated in dollars and it makes it more expensive for non-US buyers.
\nPrecious metals had a blockbuster year in 2025, with gold seeing its biggest annual gain since 1979.
\nWith financial markets spooked by concerns including Trump\u2019s tariffs and fears that artificial intelligence-related stocks were overpriced, gold and silver repeatedly hit new record highs.
\nGold peaked above $5,500 at the end of January this year, while silver also hit an all-time high of more than $120.
\nWall Street analysts expect the Fed to cut interest rate at least twice in 2026. Gold tends to be seen as a more attractive investment when interest rates are low.
\nOne of the biggest appeals of gold is its relative scarcity. Only around 216,265 tonnes of the metal have ever been mined, according to the World Gold Council trade association.
\nGold\u2019s recent run began a few years ago when central banks began buying more more bullion, but over the past year the uncertainty caused by geopolitical events such as US tariffs has increased gold\u2019s appeal.
\nWhile economic worries can help push up the value of gold, prices can just as easily fall when those concerns ease or investors feel the gains have been overdone.
\nMark Matthews, head of research for Asia at Bank Julius Baer, told Reuters that one of the likely explanations for sharp falls of the past couple of days \u201cis that precious metals prices collapsed simply because they had already gone parabolic in the previous week\u201d.
\n\u201cOnce profit taking started, it just snowballed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington Gold and silver prices have continued to fall after a dramatic reversal of a rally that had pushed precious metals to record highs. Spot gold prices fell nearly 10% at one point while silver slumped by 15% before both metals recovered some ground. Prices had hit fresh records in January as investors parked money …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93136,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93118\/revisions\/93136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}