Precious metals ended the third quarter on a firmer note Wednesday, but the bounce did little to change the month's verdict: September was the worst stretch of 2026 for both gold and silver, undoing nearly all of an unusually strong August.
A Rebound Off Tuesday's Low
Gold December futures opened at $4,216.20 per troy ounce Wednesday and had edged up to $4,219.80 by 6:47 a.m. ET, according to Yahoo Finance. That marked a recovery from Tuesday's open of $4,150.10 — the lowest opening print since August 5.
In the spot market, the move was flatter. USAGOLD's daily report put physical gold at $4,177.30 an ounce, down $3.80, or 0.09%, on the session. Silver lagged again: Fortune pegged the metal at $60.94 an ounce as of 9:25 a.m. ET, off $0.43 or 0.70%, while USAGOLD had spot silver at $61.11.
The Monthly Damage
The one-month comparisons are where the pain shows. Gold December futures sat 9.4% below where they traded a month earlier and 4.1% below the prior week, per Yahoo Finance. Trading Economics data on spot gold showed a shallower but still significant 6.18% monthly decline.
Silver's drawdown was similar in scale. Fortune calculated the metal down $5.61 from $66.55 one month ago, a drop of 8.43%.
The reversal is stark against August, when gold logged its strongest month since January with a gain of roughly 9.6%. Longer-horizon holders remain well ahead — gold is up between 7.8% and 9.1% year over year depending on the contract measured, and silver has climbed 30.66% from $46.64 a year ago, according to Fortune — but Yahoo Finance noted gold's year-over-year gain is now the narrowest since it began tracking the figure.
What Broke the Trade
The proximate cause was the Federal Reserve. On September 16, the FOMC raised its benchmark rate a quarter point to 3.75%–4.00%, the first increase in three years, and signaled a median outlook of 4.1% by year-end. For a non-yielding asset like gold, rising rates and the stronger dollar and elevated Treasury yields that came with them are a direct headwind.
Wednesday's inflation data cut the other way. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported the personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.3% in August for a 3.4% annual rate, below the 3.7% economists expected. Core PCE rose 0.2% for a 3.0% annual rate against a 3.3% consensus — soft enough to push some traders to move their next-hike expectations past October.
Not everyone reads the selloff as a broken bull case. Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at BFG Wealth Partners, has argued that "the 40-year bond bull market ended around 2021, and what followed is a prolonged structural upward rate cycle" — a backdrop he contends still favors hard assets. He has also characterized recent silver liquidation as tactical profit-taking off unsustainable chart patterns rather than a shift in long-term conviction, pointing to a persistent supply deficit as industrial demand outruns mine output and recycling.
For now, the metals enter October having given back a quarter's worth of momentum, with the Fed's next move the variable that matters most.
Sources: Yahoo Finance, Fortune, USAGOLD, Trading Economics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Discovery Alert