Gold and silver's biggest one-day moves since 2000

Two days that stand apart

Our gold and silver series runs daily from August 2000. On 30 January 2026 silver fell 31.54% in a single session in rupee terms and gold fell 11.03%. Both are the largest one-day falls in the whole record, and silver's is more than double the next worst day.

The figures are the international spot rate converted into rupees per gram, before import duty and GST, the same series behind our gold and silver price page. Where a rupee move differs from the dollar move, the exchange rate is part of the difference.

Gold: the ten biggest days

The 2001 jump spans four calendar days because our record has no row for 11–13 September that year, so treat it as a multi-day move. Two days in January 2012 would otherwise appear in this table. We excluded them: the dollar-rupee rate in our series has obviously bad prints on those dates (52.49 against a neighbouring 49.39), which inflates the rupee move. Every other row is clean on a check of the neighbouring days.

The pattern is a mix of crashes (2013) and crisis rallies (2008, 2020). Gold's largest rises came when markets were in stress, not in calm.

Silver: the ten biggest days

Look at January 2026. Silver rose 13.95% on the 26th, then fell 31.54% four sessions later. Two of the ten biggest days in a 26-year record sit within a week of each other. A further +10.85% on 30 December 2025 falls just outside the top ten.

How common are 3% days now?

A move of 3% or more in a day is rare for gold and ordinary for silver. Counting sessions with a daily move of at least 3%, in either direction:

Silver has already had more than twice as many 3% days this year as in all of 2025, in about nine and a half months. Gold has had 60% more. Silver also had 34 sessions of 5% or more in 2026 and gold had 2.

What to take from it

• Silver's daily risk is a different order from gold's. A holding that is "a bit of metal" can lose a third of its value in a session.
• Fund holders feel this through silver fund-of-funds and ETFs, which track the metal. For the year's path in rupees, see the year in rupee prices.
• One-day records are by nature single events. They say how bad a day can be, not when the next one comes.

Source: our daily gold and silver series in rupees per gram, 30 August 2000 to 12 October 2026. This post describes past moves only and is not a forecast.