Let’s say you bought silver, as bullion or in an exchange-traded fund, between Jan. 1 and Jan. 29.
And you have the stake still.
Sorry to say (though you probably know it already): You’re sitting on a loss. How big a loss is yet to be determined. But it could be as much as 18.5% — the difference between silver’s March 23 close and its $84.67 close at the end of January.
If you did the same thing with gold, you may also be sitting on a loss, though not as big as the loss in silver. Actually, you may still be ahead. A little. If you’re lucky.
Related: Market tumble sends investors scrambling: Here’s what to do now
Beware the wild market fevers
The lesson here is this: If you buy anything that’s shooting higher like fireworks on the Fourth of July, you must pay attention every day, maybe even every minute, so you don’t get caught when the bubble breaks.
Silver finished down 31 cents to $69.049 per troy ounce on March 23. It had traded as low as $61.09 at 3 a.m. ET, as worries about the war between Israel and the United States against Iran raged.
Over the weekend, President Trump had threatened to blow up Iran’s electricity grid if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened by Monday night.
But early Monday, the president said he was postponing the attack for five days at leastbecause the United States and Iran were talking about reopening the strait, the key waterway through 20% of the world’s crude must pass.
Silver abruptly turned around, reaching as high as $70.315 before drifting to that $69.049 close.
Gold jumped from $4,100.80 to $4,480 an ounce and settled at 4,404.10. The loss was still $166.30, but it could have been as much as $469 before Trump started talking.
Francesca Volpi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Here’s where the pain comes in
BUT — and this is a big but — silver and gold hit all-time highs on Jan. 29 at $121.79 and $5,626.80, respectively. And they’re down 43% and 21.5% since.
Ouch.
Actually, it’s understandable. The dollar went up. So did bond yields. Those who bought into silver and gold in, say, the summer of 2025 when silver was at $36 an ounce and gold traded at around $3,300, were sitting on some very nice profits.
Plus, when times are stressed and you need to raise cash, investors often sell their most liquid assets. Gold and silver can fit the bill, Newsweek suggested, even if you believe the bull case for gold is still good.
And so the balloons in silver and gold prices were pricked.
This may be painful for many people. But it is a routing occurance in markets. I’ve seen this happen at least five times since 1980. The last was the meme stock bubble in 2020-2021.
MoreEconomy:
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The situation reverses
On March 23, the market gloom since the war began on Feb. 28 lifted with the president’s announcement.
Stocks soared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was briefly up 1,134 points and ended with a 631-point gain.
Energy and metals stocks rallied. Exxon Mobil was up 0.9%. Chevron added 1.7%. Freeport McMoRan jumped 5.5%, and Hecla rose 3.3%.
Bond yields and mortgage rates moved lower.
What happens next
Good question. The president’s pronouncement of the five-day reprieve came on March 23 before markets opened. (And there are indications the decision was leaked to traders beforehand.)
Bloomberg News reported Trump’s attack threat alarmed U.S. allies and all the countries in the Persian Gulf region. Allies cautioned the war was “turning into a disaster.”
According to Bloomberg, people in the Gulf countries told the Trump Administration, “that permanent damage to Iranian infrastructure would almost inevitably result in a failed state after the conflict ended.”
And Iran has a population of 90 million-to-93 million, behind that of Egypt and equivalent to that of Turkey.
But there’s still skepticism that talks really are going on or are really serious. Silver and gold were both higher late on March 23. So was the price of Brent crude.
Futures trading in stock indexes suggest strongly the major averages will give back at least a third of their gains from March 23.
So, the situation remains fluid and, possibly, dangerous.
Related: Gold and silver bugs face grim reality check
