Gold Settles Below $3,900 to Finish October Down Nearly 7% as Silver Ends the Month About 18% Lower

Gold futures settled below $3,900 an ounce on Friday, October 30, 2026, completing a steep monthly decline for precious metals as a sell-off in technology stocks, higher oil prices and expectations of another Federal Reserve rate increase weighed on prices. December gold on Comex settled at $3,898.90, down 3.29%, and December silver settled at $49.276, down 5.93%, according to settlement data reported by Tiger Brokers and The Edge. Tiger Brokers said it was the first time silver futures had fallen below $50 since November 2025.

In late U.S. trading, spot gold was near $3,879.90, down $141.60, or 3.52%, and spot silver was near $49.015, down 6.06%, Kitco News reported. Friday's losses were the third straight daily decline for both gold and silver, according to The Edge.

Monthly and weekly losses

December gold ended October about 6.9% below its September 30 close of $4,186.70, and December silver about 18% below $60.098, based on Yahoo Finance futures data. On a spot basis, GoldSilver calculated that gold was down 6.3% and silver 18.6% for the month as of a 16:45 UTC snapshot on October 30, measured from September 30 closes of $4,157.14 and $60.42.

Mining.com reported that gold was on track for its worst October since 2008, when the global financial crisis was upending markets, and for a second straight monthly decline. Bullion now trades about 28% below the record close of $5,419.83 set on January 28. Silver has given back everything it gained since early December, when it began a two-month run that carried it above $120, the publication said.

For the week, December gold fell about 2.7% from its October 23 close of $4,007.90, according to Yahoo Finance data. Comex gold had slipped below $4,000 a week earlier for the first time since July, Mining.com reported.

The gap between the two metals widened through the month. At the October 16 close, gold was roughly 0.2% above its September 30 level while silver was down 5.7%, and by the October 30 snapshot silver's percentage loss was nearly three times gold's, GoldSilver said.

What drove the selling

Kitco said the technology-led stock sell-off intensified liquidation pressure across precious metals, offsetting the support normally provided by falling Treasury yields and geopolitical uncertainty. The 10-year Treasury yield declined toward 4.93%. Crude oil rose more than 2% after another tanker attack in the Strait of Hormuz, adding to inflation concerns.

The Fed left its benchmark range unchanged at 3.75% to 4.00% on Wednesday, with two policymakers favoring an immediate 25-basis-point increase, Kitco reported. Traders now price a more than 70% chance of a Fed hike in December, according to Mining.com. Government data released on October 29 put third-quarter real GDP growth at a 3.4% annualized rate and showed the personal consumption expenditures price index up 3.6% from a year earlier in September, GoldSilver noted.

Friday's U.S. reports were mixed. The employment cost index increased 0.8% in the third quarter, matching expectations and slowing from 0.9% in the second quarter, and the October Chicago purchasing managers' index fell to 55.3 from 58.8 in September, Kitco reported.

Trading was heavy. By midday in New York, the equivalent of 18 million ounces of gold and 236 million ounces of silver had traded on Comex, Mining.com reported.

Platinum, palladium and miners

January platinum settled down 3.84% at $1,436.00 an ounce, and December palladium fell 1.67% to $987.70, its fourth consecutive decline, according to The Edge, which said every metal it tracks closed lower on Friday.

Mining shares also fell, with gold and silver producers down as much as 8% during the session, Mining.com reported. Newmont closed at $106.61, down about 4.6% on the day and about 7.6% for October, while the SPDR Gold Shares exchange-traded fund ended at $355.78, down about 6.6% for the month, Yahoo Finance data show.

Next week's calendar includes the October U.S. jobs report and the U.S. midterm elections on November 3, according to RealtyWire and Kitco.