Gold and silver opened April with a strong rebound, helped by a weaker U.S. dollar, lower bond yields and renewed hopes that tensions in the U.S.-Iran war could eventually ease. But the bounce comes after one of the sharpest monthly sell-offs in precious metals in years, with gold posting its worst month in more than a decade and silver suffering its steepest monthly drop since 2011.
Gold futures rose more than 2% on Tuesday to settle at $4,678.60, while spot gold traded near $4,762.09, up about 2% late in the U.S. session. Silver futures jumped more than 6% to $74.92. Even so, the monthly picture remained deeply negative. Gold fell more than 10% in March, marking its biggest monthly decline since June 2013 and ending an eight-month winning streak. Silver dropped more than 19% over the month, snapping a 10-month run of gains and logging its worst monthly performance since 2011. Despite the March collapse, both metals are still higher for the quarter, with gold up more than 7% and silver up more than 6%, underscoring how powerful the rally had been before sentiment turned.
The latest swings in gold and silver have been closely tied to the evolving conflict between the United States and Iran, now in its fifth week. The war initially intensified demand for safe havens. Still, as energy prices surged, markets began to focus less on geopolitical fear and more on the inflationary consequences of higher oil and gas prices. That shift proved damaging for gold.
Higher energy prices raised expectations that central banks, especially the U.S. Federal Reserve, would keep interest rates elevated for longer or even consider tightening further if inflation accelerated again. Since gold pays no yield, rising real bond yields and a stronger dollar tend to pressure prices.
That dynamic has become more visible in recent weeks. According to Wayne Nutland, investment manager at Shackleton Advisers, gold had spent much of 2025 and early 2026 behaving unusually strongly relative to its traditional drivers. Before the war in Ukraine, he said gold usually moved inversely to real bond yields and the U.S. dollar. That relationship weakened after the conflict in Ukraine, when gold rose much more sharply than historical patterns would have implied. But the war in Iran appears to have restored those older correlations. As Nutland put it, both bond yields and the dollar moved higher during the recent turmoil, and gold responded in its more traditional way by falling. He also said the decline may have been amplified by investors locking in profits after the metal’s exceptional run into 2026.
Other analysts argue that gold’s sharp moves reflect not just macroeconomics, but also how crowded the trade had become. Iain Barnes, chief investment officer at Netwealth, said gold’s recent price volatility has been running at roughly twice its historical norm, driven in part by heavy participation from financial investors. He noted that central banks diversifying reserves away from the U.S. dollar may have helped launch gold’s bull market in recent years, but eventually the market ran short of new buyers. As uncertainty spread and the dollar rebounded, widespread profit-taking followed.
Barnes drew parallels to 2008, when investors had become heavily positioned in commodities amid optimism about emerging-market growth and dollar weakness. Once the broader financial crisis escalated and the dollar surged, gold fell alongside other commodities despite its safe-haven reputation. In his view, the market has again exposed where investors were most crowded: gold, seen by many as the last major haven.
That view is echoed in trading commentary as well. Recent price action suggests gold has increasingly behaved as a leveraged risk trade rather than a pure defensive asset. Selling accelerated in mid-March, especially after a four-day stretch from March 17 to 22 that drove gold down roughly $900 from peak to trough. Since then, prices had largely stabilized around $4,450 before this week’s recovery.
The start of April brought a shift in tone. Precious metals climbed to two-week highs on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said Iran was seeking a ceasefire, even as he continued to threaten overwhelming force. Trump said at the White House that the U.S. could finish “putting Iran into the Stone Age” within a short period and later repeated that language on Truth Social, while also claiming Tehran had proposed a ceasefire.
Those remarks helped cool energy markets. Brent crude slipped back toward $100 a barrel, and bond prices rose, pushing yields lower. The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury fell more than 0.2 percentage points from Friday’s eight-month high of 4.48%, while Germany’s 10-year Bund yield also retreated sharply. Global stock markets rebounded as risk sentiment improved. That combination of softer oil, lower yields, a weaker dollar and hopes of de-escalation created a more supportive backdrop for gold and silver. Chinese bank ICBC noted that the war-driven energy shock had previously heightened inflation fears and reduced expectations for Fed rate cuts, but growing prospects for a U.S.-Iran ceasefire, combined with weaker employment data, could begin to reverse that thinking.
The labor picture remains important. ADP data showed the U.S. private sector added more jobs than expected in March, but investors are also watching the official non-farm payrolls report. Because the release falls on Good Friday, many U.S. and European financial markets will be closed, raising the risk of exaggerated price swings in thin liquidity. MKS Pamp warned that any payroll-driven volatility would need to be handled carefully under those conditions.
From a market-structure standpoint, traders are watching to see whether this rebound can build momentum. Gold briefly topped $4,760 and at one stage was up around $161 on the day, its largest one-day gain since early February. That bounce brought prices back to levels last seen around March 19.
Technically, the key support level remains $4,400. That level held during the early-February rout and, although it was broken several times in late March, gold never managed to close below it. That resilience has given the bulls some encouragement. On the upside, the 50% retracement of the March trading range sits near $4,758, making it an important near-term target. Silver has staged an even more dramatic rebound, climbing above $75 per troy ounce in Asian trading and recovering more than 22% from last week’s four-month low.
For now, however, technicals may matter less than geopolitics. Gold is trading heavily as a proxy for broader risk and funding stress. One major concern has been that emerging-market central banks or governments could be forced to sell gold reserves to defend currencies or pay for expensive oil imports. Turkey reportedly sold some of its gold reserves early in the conflict, fuelling fears that others could follow. If the war moves toward resolution, liquidation risk would likely diminish, which could support prices.
At the same time, if the conflict continues and oil surges again, gold’s path becomes more complicated. In one scenario, higher oil prices drive inflation expectations, strengthen the dollar and lift bond yields, creating another headwind for bullion. In another scenario, if disruption through the Strait of Hormuz remains limited and diplomatic efforts potentially involving China gain momentum, gold could benefit from both a softer dollar and renewed concern about the global political order.
That uncertainty was captured in reporting from recent days. The Wall Street Journal said Trump had told aides he was willing to end military hostilities even if the Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed. Yet he also warned that if no deal were reached soon, U.S. forces would strike electricity plants, oil wells and Kharg Island, a critical energy export hub. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington’s objectives in Iran would take “weeks, not months” to achieve. At the same time, Reuters reported that 2,500 U.S. Marines had arrived in the region over the weekend.
Even after the March sell-off, some major banks remain optimistic on gold over the medium term. In a note released Monday, Goldman Sachs said it remained constructive despite the Iran-driven liquidation. The bank pointed out that markets have repriced the Fed’s path toward one or even zero rate cuts this year, but Goldman still expects 50 basis points of cuts, which it sees as supportive for bullion.
Goldman continues to forecast gold reaching $5,400 per ounce by the end of 2026, driven by ongoing central-bank diversification, a normalization in currently low speculative positioning and eventual Fed easing. Its base case assumes no further significant private-sector liquidation.
Still, the bank acknowledged that near-term risks remain skewed to the downside, especially if persistent disruption in the Strait of Hormuz triggers more forced selling. Over the medium term, however, Goldman sees upside risks if the Iran conflict and other geopolitical flashpoints, including Greenland and Venezuela, accelerate reserve diversification into gold and undermine confidence in Western fiscal sustainability.
There are also early signs that investor appetite may be returning, albeit cautiously. On Tuesday, both the GLD and IAU gold-backed ETF funds expanded in size for the first time simultaneously since February 11, though only modestly. Their holdings rose 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively, from recent multi-month lows. That is far from a full-blown resurgence in investment demand, but it may suggest that the sharpest phase of liquidation has passed at least for now.
Gold and silver are entering April at a pivotal moment. The March collapse showed how vulnerable even traditional safe havens can become when inflation fears, rising yields, a stronger dollar, and crowded positioning collide. Yet the early-April rebound also shows that sentiment can reverse quickly when geopolitical risks appear to ease, and bond markets regain composure.
The key question now is whether the latest bounce marks the start of a broader recovery or merely a pause in a more volatile correction. If ceasefire talks gain traction, oil remains contained and rate-cut expectations revive, gold could reassert its longer-term bullish trend. But if the war drags on, energy inflation flares again, and reserve liquidation spreads, the metal may remain under pressure despite its safe-haven status. For now, the precious metals market is caught between two powerful narratives: short-term liquidation and long-term strategic demand. March belonged to the sellers. April will test whether the buyers are ready to return.