September 2026 precious metals roundup
Written by Luke Heritage
3rd October, 2026
September was a month for rates, not safe havens. Gold fell 6.6%, from $4,481.50 to $4,186.70 an ounce, and silver fell 9.2%, from $66.22 to $60.10, which pushed the gold/silver ratio up from 67.7 to 69.7. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, US bond yields climbed to multi-year highs, and with the Strait of Hormuz dispute still unresolved, oil stayed expensive and kept inflation fears alive. Metals that pay no interest struggled against all of that. One note on the numbers. The spot price source I used in earlier roundups is no longer available to me, so every price below is a COMEX futures close (gold GC=F, silver SI=F). Futures and spot move together but are not identical, so the percentage moves here will differ slightly from the spot-based figures in my earlier months.
What was moving gold?
Gold's month came in three phases. It started strongly, jumping to 4,539.90 on 3 September, its highest close of the month (the futures touched 4,558.50 intraday). It then drifted lower through the middle of the month, and broke down in the final week to close at 4,168.40 on 28 September, the lowest close of the month. The intraday low was 4,143.10. Over the full month, gold lost 6.58%. The main driver was the Federal Reserve. On 16 September it voted 12-0 to raise its target range by 25 basis points to 3.75-4.00%, its first rise since 2023. The statement said inflation "remains elevated" and promised that the Committee "will deliver price stability". For an asset that pays no income, higher rates and higher bond yields mean a higher opportunity cost, and that is the pressure gold was under for the rest of the month.
The timing matters here, because gold did not fall on the day of the hike. The futures actually closed higher on 16 September (4,387.50, up from 4,332.80) and again on the 17th (4,399.70), because they settle before the Fed's 2pm ET announcement. The real damage came later. Between 18 September (4,424.90) and 28 September (4,168.40), gold lost 5.8%, and on the 28th alone the futures fell 3.5% as spot gold touched $4,111, a seven-week low. Saxo Bank's market note for that week lists what was going on. US Treasury yields hit new cycle highs, with the 10-year above 5.25% (a level it has traded above only once since 2002) and the 30-year at 5.58%, its highest since 2004. The dollar reached fresh highs against most major currencies. The 10-year US real yield, which strips out inflation, was near 2.9%, up from around 1.7% before the Middle East conflict began. And there was no peace deal to ease the inflation worry: President Trump had rejected Iran's latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and Brent crude was above $107. Saxo also noted some selling out of China ahead of the Golden Week holiday. It also helps to look at who owned gold going into the fall. The World Gold Council's latest ETF report covers August, and it shows how crowded the trade had become. Global gold ETFs took in $18 billion in August, the second-largest monthly inflow on record, and holdings reached a record 4,189 tonnes, with Europe ($7.9 billion) and North America ($7.7 billion) leading the buying. COMEX net long positions had also risen 39% to 753 tonnes by 25 August. My reading is that a heavily bought market was more exposed when yields turned against it, though the WGC does not say that itself. The one reassuring sign is Saxo's observation that ETF holdings stayed broadly steady through the late-September slide, which suggests investors were not rushing for the exit. The WGC's September flows report was not out at the time of writing, so I can't say whether that held to month end.
What was moving silver?
Silver fell harder than gold, down 9.24% from $66.22 to $60.10. It had the better first half, closing at $67.94 on 9 September (its highest close of the month) before sliding to $63.24 by the 15th. The last week was the worst. On 28 September silver futures dropped 4.7% in a single day, from $64.25 to $61.22, and by 30 September they had settled at $60.10, the lowest close of the month, with the intraday low at $60.00. Silver miners felt it too: Fresnillo was the weakest stock on the FTSE 100 on the 28th, down 5.1%. Silver is driven by the same things as gold (rates, yields and the dollar), but it moves further because it is a smaller, more volatile market with industrial demand on top of investment demand. That difference shows up in the gold/silver ratio, which tells you how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys.
The ratio started September at 67.68 and fell to 65.66 on 9 September, when silver was outperforming. It then climbed for the rest of the month to finish at 69.66, its highest level of the period. Put simply, silver gave back all of its early-month outperformance and more. I did not have Silver Institute supply and demand data for this roundup, so I am not going to comment on silver's industrial demand this month.
What is there to look out for next month?
Rate expectations are the biggest swing factor. The US jobs report on 2 October was weak: 29,000 jobs were added against an expected 90,000, unemployment rose to 4.2%, and wage growth slowed to 3.0%. According to Trading Economics, markets now see only about a 20% chance of another hike at the Fed's October meeting, but still price an increase in December at above 80%. Gold was trading around $4,140 that day. If the Fed sounds less certain about further hikes, that could take some pressure off. If it doesn't, yields may keep climbing. The Middle East is the other variable. US-Iran talks over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were stalled at the start of October, and oil has been reacting to each headline. It is worth noticing how the usual logic has flipped: higher oil has meant higher inflation and higher yields, which has hurt gold rather than helped it, so a peace deal could be positive for bullion even though it removes a source of geopolitical risk. I will also be watching the WGC's September ETF flows, the next central bank buying data, and the Q3 Gold Demand Trends report, which I expect in November.
My outlook
This is my own view, not advice. I still think gold and silver are undervalued over a longer horizon, and silver more so than gold. But September was a reminder that in the short term, rates are in charge. With the Fed hiking, the 10-year US real yield near 2.9% and the dollar firm, the near-term path for both metals depends on whether yields have peaked. A gold/silver ratio of 69.7 is stretched compared with where it traded earlier in the month, so if the rate pressure eases, I would expect silver to recover faster than gold. The flip side is that silver would also fall faster if yields keep rising, which makes it the higher-risk way to hold that view. I can't call the top in yields, and I would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Final comments
In one line: a hawkish Fed and surging bond yields outweighed a tense Middle East, and both metals paid for it, with silver paying more. The things to watch now are the US rate path, the oil price, and whether ETF investors keep buying the dip. Every figure above comes from the sources below, and I have been upfront about this month's change of price basis.
Sources
Gold daily closes, September 2026 (COMEX GC=F, Yahoo Finance data): https://goldpricetracker.com/history/2026-09/
Silver daily closes, September 2026 (COMEX SI=F, Yahoo Finance data): https://goldpricetracker.com/silver-history/2026-09/
Gold daily closes, August 2026 (31 August base): https://goldpricetracker.com/history/2026-08/
Silver daily closes, August 2026 (31 August base): https://goldpricetracker.com/silver-history/2026-08/
Federal Reserve FOMC statement, 16 September 2026: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20260916a.htm
World Gold Council, Gold ETF Flows: August 2026 (published 9 September 2026): https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/gold-etfs-holdings-and-flows/2026/09
Saxo Bank, Market Quick Take, 29 September 2026: https://www.home.saxo/content/articles/macro/market-quick-take---gold-slides-4-and-the-ten-year-tops-525---29-september-2026-29092026
Trading Economics, Gold Edges Lower on Friday (2 October 2026): https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/gold/news/589173
Trading Economics, Gold Rises as Markets Reassess Fed Rate Outlook (1 October 2026): https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/gold/news/588800