On Tuesday, March 31, 2026, precious metals staged a broad rally on the final trading day of a historically brutal month as reports surfaced that President Trump has told aides he is willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran, triggering an immediate risk-on response across the physical precious metals market. Gold spot price is trading at $4,561.68 per ounce, up $49.92 (+1.10%) on the day. Silver spot price is trading at $72.04 per ounce, up $2.03 (+2.90%) on the day. The gold-to-silver ratio compressed to approximately 63.3:1, reflecting silver’s sharp outperformance as industrial and investment buyers stepped in simultaneously. This daily physical gold silver market report lands on a pivotal session: despite today’s bounce, gold is closing March down more than 13%, its steepest monthly decline since October 2008. The dominant catalyst remains the complete evaporation of Federal Reserve rate-cut expectations. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at Harvard yesterday, said the central bank can “wait and see” how the Iran war affects inflation, noting policymakers typically look through energy-driven price shocks — a signal the Fed is neither cutting nor hiking, leaving gold caught between safe-haven inflows and the gravitational pull of a 3.50%–3.75% funds rate. Physical premiums have held firm throughout the selloff, suggesting stackers are treating the paper-market drawdown as an accumulation opportunity rather than a reason to liquidate.
In a detailed analysis published on March 31, 2026, CNBC reported that gold is on track for a 14.6% monthly decline — its largest since October 2008’s 16.8% crash — as the Iran war enters its fifth week and traditional pricing relationships reassert themselves (CNBC, March 31, 2026). The insight most readers will miss comes from Wayne Nutland, Investment Manager at Shackleton Advisers, who told CNBC that the past four years fundamentally changed how gold trades: before the Ukraine war, gold moved inversely to real bond yields and the dollar, but “the period after the Ukraine war upended these relationships, in particular in 2025 and into early 2026 when gold rose very strongly, far in excess of the moves suggested by those historic relationships.” What Nutland is describing — and what matters enormously for physical investors — is that the 2024–2026 bull run was structurally different from every prior gold rally because it was driven by central bank reserve diversification, not by rate expectations. The Iran war’s energy shock has now forced gold back into its old correlations with bond yields and the dollar, creating a regime change within a regime change. Iain Barnes, CIO at Netwealth, added that gold’s price volatility is currently running at twice its historical level due to “increased participation from financial investors” who are now liquidating profitable positions, amplifying the selloff far beyond what fundamentals warrant. For physical buyers, this is the critical distinction: the structural central bank bid that built the $2,000-to-$5,594 rally has not disappeared — it has merely been overwhelmed temporarily by financial investors unwinding leveraged positions into a stronger dollar. When that liquidation exhausts itself, the physical demand floor reasserts. Wells Fargo’s new $6,100–$6,300 year-end target and Goldman’s $5,400 call both reflect this view: the structural bid is intact, and March’s paper-market carnage is creating an accumulation window that patient physical investors may not see again.
