Gold and metals hit by forced liquidations

Gold and silver erased roughly $2 trillion of market value in hours during Monday’s opening rout, according to Business Today’s market tally. (businesstoday.in) During the March 19 “flash crash,” gold futures plunged as much as 6.9% to a session low near $4,557.80 per ounce while silver tumbled more than 12% to around $67.84, amplifying the speed of the wipeout. (financialcontent.com) CME Group moved precious‑metals contracts to percentage‑of‑notional margining and has lifted initial margins for COMEX gold and silver (gold margins cited around 8% and silver margins up into the mid‑teens to high‑teens), a change exchanges say tightens collateral needs for traders. (mining.com) Analysts and market commentators link those margin changes to forced liquidations and automated stop‑outs of leveraged positions, a structural deleveraging that converted volatile moves into cascading sell orders. (morningstar.com) The US dollar strengthened into the move (the DXY traded near 99.65 on March 23, 2026), and central‑bank research has warned that rapid unwinds in FX‑swap and funding markets can trigger a “scramble for dollars,” tightening dollar liquidity for global trade. (tradingeconomics.com) (bis.org) Exchanges’ percentage margins plus dollar‑funding stress raise short‑term hedging and working‑capital costs for fabricators and importers, while academic work on dollar funding and FX swaps shows a widened cross‑currency basis increases the cost of trade finance for non‑US banks and corporates. (monetary-metals.com) (nber.org) Metals directly used in electronics supply chains were not immune: silver suffered double‑digit intraday losses and earlier repositioning in gold, silver and copper triggered tokenized‑metal liquidations (about $120m reported), underlining episodic price and financing stress that can feed through to component and materials pricing. (financialcontent.com) (coindesk.com)