You hear a lot about traders selling gold to meet margin calls in order to cover other losses being a major factor in the nosedive for the yellow metal. Here’s a graphic example of how that’s worked recently as, on at least three occasions in the last few weeks, a big sell-off in stocks is followed by a sell-off in gold the next day.

On September 9th and 21st, while equity markets were plunging, the gold price held up fairly well, but, on the 10th and 22nd the gold price tumbled, margin calls for the prior days’ losses presumably being a big  factor. Of course, the gold price doesn’t always fall the day afters stocks do, but on the big moves down, there appears to be a high correlation.