Gold rises as tech selloff pulls yields lower; silver falls

At the latest verified afternoon quotation, spot gold was near $4,087.26 an ounce, up $25.93, or 0.64%. It had earlier touched $4,148.00, its highest intraday level since Oct. 20. Spot silver was near $51.778, down $0.407, or 0.78%, after surrendering earlier gains amid broad selling in technology and industrially sensitive markets.

U.S. equities tumbled, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 1,833.06 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523.06. The S&P 500 fell 4.36% to 7,353.73, its steepest daily decline since April 2025, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped about 5.52% to around 24,315. Nvidia fell about 9.3% and Advanced Micro Devices lost 17.3%; the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slid approximately 12%. Investors reassessed artificial-intelligence and data-center spending amid concerns about financing costs, political scrutiny and possible infrastructure delays.

The flight to government bonds pushed the 10-year Treasury yield down to about 4.82%, its lowest since early September, and the two-year yield toward 4.48%. Futures markets put the implied chance of a December Fed rate increase at about 66% to 69%, down from roughly 83% on Wednesday. Lower yields supported gold, though the scale of the risk-asset selloff and concerns about industrial demand weighed on silver.

Thursday’s data showed nonfarm business productivity rose at a 3.6% annualized rate in the third quarter, above the expected 2.8% and the revised 2.1% gain in the second quarter. Unit labor costs fell at a 0.7% rate, against expectations for a 0.6% increase. Initial jobless claims dropped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 189,000 in the week ended Oct. 31, the lowest since mid-July. Continuing claims rose to about 1.718 million in the preceding reporting week.

Markets next turn to Friday’s October employment report, due at 8:30 a.m. EST. Economists expect payrolls to rise by about 65,000 and unemployment to remain near 4.2%. The preliminary November University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is scheduled for 10 a.m. EST.

Oil also rebounded: Brent settled up $3.67, or 3.88%, at $98.29 a barrel, and Nymex WTI gained $2.40, or 2.72%, to $90.52, following losses of more than 8% in both benchmarks on Wednesday. Iranian military authorities said five oil tankers and a tugboat were damaged or caught fire in separate incidents involving naval mines; the claims have not been independently confirmed in full. British maritime security authorities separately confirmed that a tanker was struck by two projectiles late Wednesday, about 50 nautical miles north of Qatar’s Madinat ash-Shamal. Qatar is mediating between Washington and Tehran, but no binding agreement has been reached on sanctions, Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. naval blockade or restoring normal shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Gold’s first resistance was cited at $4,146, followed by $4,212, with support at $4,075 and $3,989. For silver, resistance stood at $53.070 and $54.450, and support at $51.240 and $50.030.