Gold in Recessions and Market Crashes: The Record

People often say gold "does well in hard times." This page checks that claim against the record. We lined up the official U.S. recession dates with monthly gold prices and looked at what happened, including the stretches when gold fell. It belongs to our guide to gold and precious metals basics. It is general education, not personal advice, and it makes no forecast.

How do we know when a U.S. recession happened?

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a research organization. Its Business Cycle Dating Committee sets the official months when U.S. economic activity peaked and bottomed. The NBER says that "a recession is a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months". Its business cycle table lists these recessions since 1969:

The NBER also lists a December 1969 to November 1970 recession. We left it out because our price analysis starts in 1971. The NBER announced that the 2007-09 recession "lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II" and that the 2020 recession "lasted two months, which makes it the shortest US recession on record".

Where does the gold price data come from?

We used the open datasets/gold-prices file on GitHub, downloaded on 2026-10-07. Its README says data from 1960 on comes from the World Bank's Commodity Markets "Pink Sheet." We could not open the World Bank site from our work environment, so we could not check the file against the original. Treat the figures as approximate. Our price volatility page uses the same file.

Our method:

1. Each value is a monthly average price in U.S. dollars per troy ounce. It is not adjusted for inflation.
2. "Start" is the average for the NBER peak month. "End" is the average for the NBER trough month.
3. "Lowest drop inside" is the largest fall from a running high to a later low, using only months inside the recession.
4. "12 months later" compares the trough month with the same month one year on.

Monthly averages smooth out sharp moves. Daily prices would show bigger highs and lows. All percentages are our own calculations and are rounded.

What did gold do in each recession?

In plain terms:

• Higher at the end: five of seven recessions (1973-75, 1981-82, 2001, 2007-09, 2020). The size ranged from about 2% to 87%.
• Lower or flat: 1980 ended about 5% below its start, and 1990-91 ended unchanged.
• Big drops in the middle: gold fell about 24% in early 1980, about 29% in 1981-82, and about 21% in 2008. In the 2007-09 recession, a gold holder who needed cash in November 2008 would have faced a lower price than in December 2007 ($761 against $803), even though the price later passed $900.
• The 1973-75 gain needs context. Gold started that recession at its lowest month in the window. A start-to-end comparison depends heavily on the dates you pick.

Did gold keep rising after recessions ended?

Not always. Looking 12 months past each trough shows both directions:

Gold was lower a year after four of the seven troughs. After the 1980 recession ended, the monthly average fell about 36% in a year. Our price volatility page shows the longer-term drawdowns, including a roughly 62% decline in monthly averages from January 1980 to July 1999.

What does this record show, and what does it not show?

What it shows:

• Gold's price did not move in one consistent way across recessions. Some ended higher, some lower, and several had large swings in between.
• Recession dates are set after the fact. The NBER committee waits for enough data before it announces turning points, so nobody could act on those dates in real time.
• Gold prices respond to many things, not only the economy. Our gold supply and demand page covers some of them.

What it does not show:

• Why prices moved. We tested no explanation, such as inflation, interest rates or the dollar.
• Anything about stock market crashes. This page covers recessions only. We did not obtain stock index data we could open and check, so we make no claim about gold during equity crashes. Our reading is that a claim such as "gold rises when stocks fall" needs its own dates and data before anyone can rely on it.
• Inflation-adjusted results, which can differ.
• Silver, platinum, palladium, or gold funds and mining stocks.
• Seven recessions is a very small sample. Averages from so few cases can mislead.

What does this mean for a Gold IRA?

A Gold IRA holds metal whose price can fall, including during a recession. Dealer markups, custodian fees and storage fees add to the price you need to see before you break even. See Gold IRA risks and our historical gold prices page for more data.

We do not say what to buy or how much to hold, and we do not predict what gold will do in the next recession. Questions worth taking to a fee-only financial planner or tax professional:

• If gold fell 20% to 30% while the economy was weak, would that change my plans?
• Might I need to sell metal or take distributions during a downturn?
• What does it cost, in writing, to buy and to sell?

Quick answers

Does gold always rise in a recession? No. In the data above it ended lower in one recession, flat in one, and fell sharply inside three.

Is gold a "safe haven"? People use that phrase for assets they expect to hold value in a crisis. The record above shows that gold's price has fallen in some of those periods. Whether it fits your situation is a question for a qualified professional.

Will gold do the same next time? Nobody can say. Past prices do not predict future prices.

Return to gold and precious metals basics for related topics.