A $9-Trillion Whiplash: Why Gold, Silver and US Stocks Just Saw Extreme Volatility

For a few chaotic hours, global markets moved like they had lost their anchor. Gold collapsed. Silver plunged. US stocks slid. And then, almost as violently, everything snapped back.

In one of the most volatile trading sessions in recent memory, nearly $9 trillion in market capitalisation swung across gold, silver and US equities within a single day. The scale of the moves was staggering and so was the speed.

Gold, long seen as the ultimate safe haven, fell nearly 8% as US markets opened, briefly erasing almost $3 trillion in value. Within 6.5 hours, buyers rushed back in, clawing back close to $2 trillion by the close.

Silver was even more brutal. Prices plunged almost 12 %, wiping out roughly $750 billion, before rebounding to recover about $500 billion. The metal had only just touched record highs days earlier, riding its strongest monthly surge since 1979.

US equities mirrored the chaos. The S&P 500 shed about $780 billion intraday before recovering $530 billion. The Nasdaq, down 2.4% at the open, erased $760 billion, then added back $580 billion by the end of the session.

In total, US equities lost $1.15 trillion at the day’s worst point and recovered $1.07 trillion before the closing bell.

According to BullionVault, the selloff began after gold and silver slid sharply from fresh record highs. Gold briefly plunged nearly $500 per ounce to around $5,100, just hours after peaking close to $5,600. That single move wiped out an estimated $3.4 trillion from the total value of all gold above ground.

Silver’s fall was sharper still. After surging more than 68 per cent in January, the metal slipped from above $121 per ounce to around $107, as fears spread from commodities into technology stocks.

Those fears hit Big Tech fast. Oracle dropped 5.4%, while Nvidia slid 2.7% at the open, as traders fretted over a potential AI-driven valuation bubble.

The turbulence was not confined to the US. In India, gold prices on the MCX fell nearly 12% intraday, tumbling from Rs 1,80,779 per 10 grams to Rs 1,57,808, before rebounding sharply to around Rs 1,69,600 as bargain hunters stepped in.

(With inputs from ANI)