Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, et al.

New closing lows for gold, silver, and bitcoin (BTC.X) continued this week.

Gold (spot) broke below $4,000, dropping as low as $3959 on Wednesday before closing at $3998. A small rebound brought the yellow metal up to $4088, where it closed in New York on Friday/26th.

Silver price action was more dramatic, closing solidly below $60 for three straight days, finishing the week at $59.05. The new intraday low for silver this week was $55.53. 

At their respective lows, gold has dropped 27% since its peak of $5414 in January, and silver has declined by 54%. 

Bitcoin broke below $60,000 and reached a 52-week low of $58,075, matching silver's decline of 54%. Bitcoin was sitting at a peak of $127,000 only 10 months ago. 

Crypto woes extended to Ethereum (ETH-X) and Ripple (XRP-X), which are both at 52-week lows. Ripple leads the crypto carnage with a loss of 72% since its peak price of $3.65, less than one year ago. Ethereum isn't far behind, sporting a loss of 70% since its peak last summer. 

Collateral damage from Bitcoin's collapse extends to Strategy (MSTR) stock, which dropped as low as $81 on Friday/26th, before closing at $82, a decline of 82% from its peak price last year at $457. 

$REALITY OF THE LOSSES 

The damage that has occurred to investors should be apparent, but when talking about financial matters in percentage terms, the actual relevance is sometimes lost. To be clear about the numbers, below are the specific dollar amounts of losses for each of the investments above. Calculations are based on the same percentages cited above and refer to an investment amount of $100,000. 

GOLD        $100,000      $73,000       ($27,000) 

SILVER     $100,000      $46,000       ($54,000) 

BITCOIN   $100,000      $46,000       ($54,000) 

MSTR        $100,000.     $18,000       ($82.000) 

If you owned Strategy (MSTR) stock worth $1,000,000 last summer, that same amount of stock is now worth $180,000. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

People are usually quite willing to share the details of how well their latest investment has performed, all the time implying that their own results are similar. It is not a one-way street, though, and the numbers above are offered in the hope they might provide some needed insight and provoke thoughtful consideration of the facts before jumping aboard the next rocket ship to the moon.