Gold Suffers Biggest Drop Since 2020

By Nate Wolf

With gold behaving more like a growth stock than a safe-haven asset, a bit of volatility was bound to hit at some point. It's finally here — and its hitting Newmont stock as well.

Gold continuous contract prices were down 3.9% to $4,187.70 per troy ounce on Tuesday, putting the yellow metal on track for a fourth straight trading session with a swing of more than 2% in either direction.

That turbulence has caused even greater swings among gold mining stocks. Newmont, one of the world's largest gold miners, was the worst performer in the S&P 500 on Tuesday, falling 8.8%.

Newmont's stumble follows a 4.5% gain on Monday, a 7.6% decline on Friday, and a 5% rise on Thursday. If you're doing the math at home, that is about a 7% pullback over the course of a few days — nothing to panic about. But how it arrived at that decline is notable.

Miners like Newmont are traditionally stable if not downright sleepy stock picks. Over the last five years, Newmont has a beta — a measure of volatility relative to a benchmark — of 0.49, which essentially means it is half as volatile as the broader market. Agnico Eagle Mines is similar at 0.47, with Barrick Mining a tick higher at 0.51.

But the relentless rise of gold and indeed mining stocks appears to have changed the calculus on Wall Street. Gold mining stocks are now reacting to the price of bullion the way crypto companies react to the price of Bitcoin. The SPDR S&P Metals & Mining exchange-traded fund fell 4.9% on Tuesday.

Jitters about whether the gold rally is overdone may play a part in that new pattern. The yellow metal is up 60% this year. And while some strategists, like Société Générale's Mike Haigh, believe gold's rise to $5,000 per troy ounce is "increasingly inevitable, " others are urging caution.

"Gold has entered a zone of unsustainable advance," wrote analysts at Renaissance Macro Research in a weekend note, adding that the bull run has made it more difficult to gauge when to take profits.

"Whenever the reversal strikes, traditional trend following techniques are likely to be too slow to react to preserve capital," Renaissance wrote.

Silver prices add another variable to the increasingly complicated equation. Companies like Newmont, Agnico Eagle, and Coeur Mining also produce silver, and silver prices have climbed even faster than gold prices this year.

Silver, which has tended to be more volatile than gold, was down 5.3% to $48.62 per troy ounce on Tuesday.

The combination of skyrocketing prices, newfound volatility, and diverging investor sentiment has put miners in unfamiliar territory. We know their next moves will depend on underlying precious metal prices. It's anyone's guess how big those moves might be.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

Toronto's indexes are on their back feet in early trading, with the biggest decliners in materials stocks. Canada's S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 1.3% at 30013 and the blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 falls 1% to 1769. Among the biggest decliners of the session are gold miners, with the main laggard Lundin gold, off 13%, followed by Aya Gold & Silver, down 12% and Seabridge Gold, also 12% lower. (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

Zinc futures in the UK rose to the $3,000 per tonne mark, not far from the year-to-date high of $3,050 tested earlier in October as persistent bottlenecks among smelting operations pressured the supply of refined zinc.

Data compiled by the International Lead and Zinc Study Group reported that refined zinc production has fallen more than 2% this year despite the 6.3% jump in mined output.

This was consistent with output curbs among smelters in Kazakhstan and Japan, with the latter being pressured by the closure of the key Toho Zinc Annaka plant.

Likewise, treatment charges for zinc rose to $87.5 per ton after being negative in the end of last year, according to surveys from the Shanghai Metals Market.

Consequently, stocks at the LME sank to below 37.3 thousand tonnes, compared to 230.5 thousand tonnes at the start of the year.

The value corresponds to less than one day of global demand, resulting in the sharpest cash to 3-month contract spread since at least 1997.

Haliburton's North America business beat expectations for 3Q, but the company says on the analyst call it's still facing a challenging market in the region. "Operators are navigating volatile commodity prices as OPEC+ spare capacity returns and trade concerns persist," says Chief Executive Jeff Miller. "The impact is most apparent in North America, where we expect customers to maintain the cautious posture they adopted in the second quarter." Oil prices have slid for much of the year due to concerns about a global oversupply as OPEC+ increases production. That has led oil producers to pull back, hurting Haliburton's oil-services business. (nicholas.miller@wsj.com)

WINNIPEG, Manitoba--Intercontinental Exchange canola futures stepped back Tuesday morning, pressured lower by losses in Chicago soyoil and Malaysian palm oil.

The declines were tempered by gains in Chicago soybeans and MATIF rapeseed. Spillover from increases in crude oil underpinned the vegetable oils.

The most-traded January contract slipped below its 20-day moving average.

Canola crush margins climbed higher, with the November position up by nearly C$6 at more than C$218 per tonne above the futures.

There has been little news from tariff talks between Canada and China. The latter said it would remove its duties on imports of Canadian canola if Canada eliminated its surcharge on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles.

Prairie temperatures are expected to rise during the week, pushing into the mid teens up to 20 degrees Celsius by the weekend, with no rain for the region.

The Canadian dollar was virtually unchanged on Tuesday morning, with the loonie at 71.26 U.S. cents.

Approximately 11,700 contracts were traded by 9:36 EDT and prices in Canadian dollars per metric tonne were:

 
           Price      Change 
Nov       608.50     dn 6.90 
Jan       623.30     dn 6.70 
Mar       635.10     dn 6.20 
May       645.50     dn 5.70 
 

Source: Commodity News Service Canada, news@marketsfarm.com

Newmont Corporation (NEM) is currently at $86.57, down $8.32 or 8.77%

• Would be lowest close since Oct. 10, 2025, when it closed at $85.14
• On pace for largest percent decrease since Oct. 24, 2024, when it fell 14.7%
• Currently down two of the past three days
• Up 2.68% month-to-date
• Up 132.59% year-to-date; on pace for best year on record (Based on available data back to Jan. 21, 1972)
• Down 11.91% from its all-time closing high of $98.27 on Oct. 16, 2025
• Up 47.53% from 52 weeks ago (Oct. 22, 2024), when it closed at $58.68
• Down 11.91% from its 52-week closing high of $98.27 on Oct. 16, 2025
• Up 133.97% from its 52-week closing low of $37.00 on Dec. 30, 2024
• Traded as low as $86.53; lowest intraday level since Oct. 10, 2025, when it hit $84.74
• Down 8.81% at today's intraday low; largest intraday percent decrease since July 15, 2025, when it fell as much as 8.96%
• Worst performer in the S&P 500 today

All data as of 9:51:09 AM ET

Source: Dow Jones Market Data, FactSet