Precious Metal

Silver Settles at Lowest Since November 2025 After 5.8% Weekly Drop; Gold Has Worst Week Since June

Front-month Comex silver settled at $53.711 an ounce on Oct. 23, down 5.76% for the week and the lowest since Nov. 26, 2025, while Comex gold fell 4.05%, its largest weekly drop since June.

Oct 24, 2026 - 12:15

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Silver futures closed out the week of October 19-23, 2026, at their lowest settlement in nearly 11 months, and gold recorded its steepest weekly decline since early June, as higher oil prices and firm U.S. business data reinforced expectations that interest rates will stay elevated.

Silver's two-week slide

Front-month Comex silver for October delivery fell $1.053, or 1.92%, on Friday, October 23, to settle at $53.711 a troy ounce, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That left the contract down $3.284, or 5.76%, for the week and down $6.959, or 11.47%, over two weeks, the largest two-week decline since the week ending June 26, 2026.

Friday's settlement was the lowest since November 26, 2025. Silver has fallen in seven of the past nine weeks and in three consecutive sessions, losing 6.92% over those three days. The contract was down 10.63% for October to date and 23.42% for the year, and stood 53.33% below its record settlement of $115.08, set on January 26, 2026, Dow Jones Market Data showed. It remained 11.03% higher than a year earlier.

In the spot market, silver slid 1% to $53.97 an ounce by 2:27 p.m. EDT, its lowest since November 2025, CNBC reported. Silver has faced additional pressure from concerns that restrictive monetary policy and elevated energy costs could weigh on manufacturing demand, Kitco News reported.

Gold posts its biggest weekly drop since June

Front-month Comex gold for October delivery fell $51.70, or 1.28%, on Friday to settle at $3,991.10 an ounce, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The contract lost $168.40, or 4.05%, for the week, its largest one-week decline since the week ending June 5, 2026, and its second straight weekly loss.

The settlement was the lowest since July 16 and the third-lowest of the year. Gold was down 3.96% for October to date and 7.73% year to date, and was 24.96% below its record settlement of $5,318.40 from January 29, 2026. The more actively traded December gold contract settled 1.3% lower at $4,007.90, while spot gold fell 0.6% to $3,998.49 by 2:27 p.m. EDT, slipping below $4,000 for the first time since mid-July, CNBC reported.

Platinum and palladium

Spot platinum fell 0.9% to $1,555.84 an ounce, its lowest since July, and palladium dropped 0.5% to $1,048.31, its lowest since June 2025, according to CNBC. Both metals, along with silver, were headed for weekly declines.

Oil, data and rate expectations

Brent crude settled at $116.72 a barrel on Friday, its highest settlement since April, after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia stoked concern over further disruption to energy supplies, CNBC reported. Higher energy prices have fueled inflation concerns and reinforced expectations that U.S. interest rates will stay elevated, a backdrop that typically weighs on non-yielding bullion.

U.S. data released Friday added to that view. The preliminary October composite purchasing managers' index eased to 57.6 from 58.4 but remained at its second-highest level since March 2022, while selling-price inflation across manufacturing and services accelerated to its fastest pace since August 2022, Kitco reported. The outlet said the combination "strengthened concerns that persistent inflation could require additional monetary tightening." Year-ahead consumer inflation expectations in the University of Michigan survey rose to 4.7%.

"Heightened inflation concerns suggest that major central banks of the world won't be able to ease monetary policies as quickly as they want to. All that's working against the gold and silver market bulls at present," Jim Wyckoff, a market analyst at American Gold Exchange, told CNBC. Wyckoff also said the recent selloff in technology stocks had triggered margin calls for some equity traders, prompting sales of gold and silver.

Next week

The Fed is in its pre-meeting communications blackout. The Federal Open Market Committee meets October 27-28 and announces its decision at 2 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, followed by September personal consumption expenditures inflation data at 8:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 29, Kitco reported. Fed funds futures late Friday implied a less-than-10% chance of a hike next week and about an 80% probability of a hike in December, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters.