Gold fell 3.1% in a day: 91 such drops since 2000

One session, two prices

On 22 October 2026 the rupee price of gold in WealthTicker's series fell from ₹12,637.6 to ₹12,249.5 per gram, a one-session drop of 3.07%. Silver fell from ₹174.9 to ₹165.6 per gram, down 5.27%. The week's wider picture is in our week-to-22-October post; this one asks how unusual a 3% day is.

How often it has happened

The series holds 6,554 daily changes for each metal, from 30 August 2000 to 22 October 2026.

So a 3% fall in gold is rare, about one session in 72, while the same size fall in silver comes about one in 18. Silver's moves are routinely larger, which is why the 5.27% on 22 October for silver is less remarkable than the 3.07% for gold.

The count for gold is highly concentrated in recent years. In 2025 there were six such days (4 April, 23 April, 1 May, 12 May, 21 October and 29 December). In 2026 there have been eleven so far:

The biggest single falls on record

The largest one-day fall in either metal came this year. On 30 January 2026 gold dropped 11.03% and silver 31.54%, the worst session for each in the whole series. For gold the next worst were 15 April 2013 (-8.99%), 13 June 2006 (-7.06%) and 20 June 2013 (-6.58%). For silver, the next worst after January were 23 September 2011 (-15.60%), 20 April 2006 (-13.72%) and 2 October 2008 (-13.32%).

Where prices stand against the peak

Both metals reached their 2026 highs in the last week of January, before that fall.

Against the 2025 year-end close, gold at ₹12,249.5 is 2.2% lower (₹12,529.1 then) and silver 18.2% lower (₹202.4 then). So gold has given back its gain for the year and silver more than that. Gold is still well above its level in the spring of 2025, when it was ₹8,322.8 per gram on 4 April.

Reading a fall like this

A few points about how the series is built and what it can say.

• It is a rupee price. The series is in rupees per gram, so a day's move can reflect the metal's global price, the rupee, or both. The dollar-rupee rate moved less than 1% over the past eleven days, so the rupee explains little of this week's fall.
• Volatility clusters. Eleven 3% falls in under ten months is far above gold's long-run rate of 91 in 26 years, so the 91 are not evenly spread over time.
• Counting drops ignores rises. A series with 91 falls of 3% has also had large rises; this post does not count them.

For how long the metals have historically taken to recover from deep falls, see how long to regain a peak in rupees, and for the metals' relative price, the gold-silver ratio post. This is a description of past price moves, not a forecast.