The precious metals trade cracked Monday morning. Silver suffered its steepest single-day loss in months and gold fell below $4,150 an ounce, as Treasury yields parked near two-decade highs and traders moved further toward pricing another Federal Reserve rate increase in October.
Silver Takes the Harder Hit
Silver spot prices fell 5.12% to $61.02 per troy ounce, according to Investing.com data taken at 4:58 a.m. ET. In the futures market, Yahoo Finance reported December silver opened at $64.66 and had slid to $61.75 by 7:07 a.m. ET.
The move undoes a month of grinding gains. Silver is down 2.7% over the past week and 6.8% over the past month — a sharp reversal from September 21, when the metal was holding near $66 and shrugging off dollar strength. The longer view remains dramatic: silver is still up 44.1% from a year ago, per Yahoo Finance.
Gold Slips to Seven-Week Low
Gold spot fell 3.3% to $4,146.12 per ounce, with December futures down 3.3% to $4,178.05, Investing.com reported. Yahoo Finance's futures snapshot showed the December contract opening at $4,275.20 before dropping to $4,188.90 by 6:57 a.m. ET — the lowest level since August 5.
Gold has now given back 3.1% over the past week and 8.2% over the past month, though it remains 13.1% above year-ago levels. At Monday's spot prices, the gold-to-silver ratio sits near 68, up from roughly 66 a week earlier as silver underperformed.
The selling extended across the complex. Platinum fell 3.2% to $1,725.01, and copper futures dropped 2.04% to $6.6278 per pound.
Yields and Rate Bets Do the Damage
The pressure came from the bond market. The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 5.229% Monday, with the 2-year at 4.19%, per Investing.com. Those levels follow a Friday session in which the 10-year briefly touched 5.23% — its highest since June 15, 2007 — while the 30-year reached 5.488%, a level last seen in 2004, CNBC reported. The dollar index added 0.1% to 101.09.
Rising real yields raise the opportunity cost of holding metal that pays no income. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack told Bloomberg on September 25 that long-term Treasury yields are being pushed higher by stronger growth expectations, concerns over government debt and expectations for additional rate increases, adding that "it's real rates that have moved up more than the inflation expectations."
CME FedWatch data showed markets pricing roughly 65% to 70% odds of an October rate increase, up from a coin flip earlier in the month.
The Oil Complication
The irony is that the inflation hedge sold off on an inflation scare. Oil rose after President Trump rejected Iran's proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though Axios reported both sides would return to the negotiating table this week. West Texas Intermediate crude traded near $94 a barrel, up roughly 1.7%, with Brent higher as well.
Higher energy prices would normally support gold. Instead, traders read them as fuel for the Fed's hawkish case — and sold the metal that a hawkish Fed punishes most.
Sources: Investing.com, Yahoo Finance Personal Finance (gold and silver price reports for September 28, 2026), Trading Economics, Bloomberg, CNBC, CME FedWatch, Axios