Gold Price Volatility and Drawdowns: Historical Evidence

Can gold lose value? Yes. Can a Gold IRA lose money? Also yes. This page shows how large and how long gold price declines have been in the past, using a dataset we downloaded and calculated from ourselves. It is part of our guide to Gold IRA risks. It is general education, not advice, and it makes no forecast. Past prices do not tell you what gold will do next.

What do regulators say about gold price swings?

Two U.S. financial watchdogs say plainly that gold prices move.

• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) wrote that "gold and other precious metals are highly volatile and past performance is not a good predictor of future returns," in its article Gold Is No Safe Investment. That article is about metals investing in general.
• The CFTC's 10 Things to Ask Before Buying Physical Gold, Silver, or Other Metals says "precious metals prices can fluctuate just like other investments."
• FINRA, the securities industry's self-regulator, says in 4 Tips to Know Before Buying Physical Precious Metals (dated March 24, 2026) that "metal prices can fluctuate, like any other investment, and they're sometimes quite volatile."

Volatility means how much and how fast a price moves up and down. A drawdown is the drop from a price peak to a later low point.

Where does the price data come from, and how did we use it?

We downloaded the monthly gold price file from the open datasets/gold-prices project on GitHub on 2026-10-06. 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 directly from our work environment, so we could not check the file against the original. Treat the figures as approximate.

Our method:

1. We used U.S. dollar prices per troy ounce, one value per month (a monthly average), from January 1971 through September 2026. We chose 1971 as the start of our analysis window; we did not research earlier price history.
2. We tracked the running peak. Each time the price fell below the prior peak, we measured the drop. The trough is the lowest month before the price climbed back to that peak.
3. "Recovery" means the first month the monthly average got back to or above the old peak.
4. Prices are not adjusted for inflation. Inflation-adjusted figures would show different recovery times.

A limit of this method: monthly averages smooth out sharp moves inside a month. Daily prices would show larger peaks and deeper troughs.

How big have gold drawdowns been?

These are the largest declines in the dataset, as monthly averages in dollars per ounce.

Source: our calculations from the monthly series described above. Percentages are rounded.

What the table shows, in plain terms:

• The deepest decline, from January 1980, took about 19.5 years to reach its low. The price took about 26 years and 4 months in total to get back to its old monthly peak, before inflation.
• The 2011 peak took about 8 years and 10 months to regain.
• Declines of about 20% can happen within months, as in 2008 and 1973.
• The most recent decline in the data is still open: the monthly average had not regained its February 2026 level by September 2026. We are not saying what comes next.

How often does gold fall in a year?

We also compared each December's monthly average with the prior December's, for 1972 through 2025 (54 years). Gold was lower in 20 of those years and higher in 34. The largest yearly declines were about 27.5% in 2013, 24.5% in 1975 and 23.8% in 1981.

Those same data show big gains too, such as 1979 (about 119%). Volatility works in both directions, but a retirement saver who needs money during a down stretch cannot choose the timing.

We also measured how much monthly prices bounce around. The annualized standard deviation of monthly changes was roughly 12% to 13% for the periods starting in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. Standard deviation is a common statistic for the typical size of price swings. We did not obtain comparable data for stocks or bonds, so this page does not rank gold against them.

Can a Gold IRA lose money?

Yes. A gold IRA holds metal whose price moves as described above. If the market price is below what you paid, the account is worth less. Nothing about the IRA wrapper protects against a price decline. Our Gold IRA liquidity risk page covers a separate issue, how easily metal can be turned back into cash.

Extra risks can sit on top of price risk:

• Dealer markups and spreads. The CFTC explains that a dealer sells above the spot price and buys back below it. It adds: "If the spread is too high, as in most frauds, it's impossible for buyers to ever profit." See our page on dealer premiums, markups and spreads.
• Financing. FINRA lists the use of loans or financing to buy metals as another risk. FINRA lists leverage as a risk for buyers of metals; ask any seller whether financing is involved.
• Storing metal yourself. FINRA mentions possible loss or theft. IRA rules on holding metal are a separate topic in our gold IRA storage section.

How do fees make a loss bigger?

Fees do not change the price of gold. They change what you need gold to do before you break even. FINRA advises getting "all fees and other costs in writing" and understanding "what level of return you'd need to earn to break even."

A simple, made-up example, not a quote from any company: suppose $10,000 goes in, and $1,000 (10%) goes to markups and up-front fees, so $9,000 buys metal at market value. The metal must rise about 11.1% (10,000 divided by 9,000) just to be worth $10,000 again. Annual custodian and storage fees add to that hurdle every year. If gold falls 20% in the meantime, the $9,000 of metal is worth about $7,200 before any ongoing fees.

The CFTC reports a harsher case. It says that "in some cases, gold or silver IRA fraud victims had one-third to one-half of their savings drained by fraudsters' markups, fees, and commissions." That statement describes fraud victims, not typical customers. It shows how costs alone can hurt savings. For a list of charges to look for, see hidden Gold IRA fees and our fees guide.

What does this mean for a retirement account?

We do not tell readers what to buy or how much to hold. Some questions the data raises are worth taking to a fee-only financial planner or tax professional:

• If the price fell 40% to 60% and stayed down for years, could you still meet your needs?
• Will you need to sell or take distributions during a down period? Required minimum distributions, if they apply to you, have deadlines.
• What is the total cost to get in and out, in writing?
• How much of your savings is in one asset, in any account?

What are the limits of this page?

• Monthly averages, not daily closing prices or intraday lows.
• Not adjusted for inflation.
• Mirror of World Bank data, not checked against the World Bank's own file.
• It covers gold only. It does not cover silver, platinum or palladium, or gold-company stocks and funds.
• We will refresh the numbers when we update this page.

For the wider picture of what can go wrong, return to Gold IRA risks.