Gold (GLD) Historical Drawdowns

Every Major Gold Drawdown Since 2008

Gold's most recent drawdown — a sharp pullback from the January 2026 all-time high above $5,589/oz to a March 2026 low near $4,170/oz, roughly a 25% decline — is not included as a row below because it has not yet recovered to a new high. It is covered in the "Where is gold right now?" section above and in the Key Observations below. The table covers every completed (fully recovered) gold drawdown of 15% or more from a prior high since 2008, tracked via GLD (SPDR Gold Shares ETF), the closest continuously-traded proxy for gold spot prices.

Conventions: Depth is the peak-to-trough decline on closing prices of GLD (SPDR Gold Shares ETF), the closest continuously-traded proxy for gold spot prices. Duration is the number of calendar days from the peak to the trough. Recovery is measured from the trough until gold closed above the prior peak again (not from the peak). Severity scores are retroactive estimates using DrawdownAlerts' methodology and are not directly comparable across eras or assets, because each asset's historical baseline evolves over time.

GLD launched in November 2004; figures for the 2008 crisis and later are based on gold spot prices, which GLD tracks closely (before its own fund fees and expenses). Dates and depths marked with "~" are approximate, cross-checked against public sources but subject to some variation depending on whether spot, futures, or GLD share prices are used.

Key Observations

• -Gold's worst drawdown took nearly nine years to fully recover. The 2011-2015 secular bear market erased about 45% of gold's value from its September 2011 peak, and gold did not close at a new all-time high again until August 2020 — by far the longest recovery of any event in this dataset.
• -Gold is in a new, still-open drawdown as of 2026. After a 65%+ rally through 2025 and into a January 28, 2026 all-time high above $5,589/oz, gold fell sharply in March 2026 — its steepest monthly drop in more than 17 years — to an intra-year low near $4,170/oz, a decline of roughly 25% in about two months. That drawdown has not yet recovered to a new all-time high.
• -Gold's crashes are faster than its bear markets. The 2008 financial crisis crash cut gold's price by roughly 30% in about seven months and fully recovered in around four months, a sharp but short-lived panic tied to a broader liquidity crunch. The 2011-2015 and 2020-2022 declines, by contrast, were slower, multi-year grinds tied to real interest rates and the strength of the dollar.
• -Recoveries have historically taken far longer than the declines themselves. In every completed event in this dataset, the time to recover from the trough back to a new high exceeded the time it took to fall to that trough — most dramatically in 2011-2015, where a roughly 4.3-year decline was followed by a roughly 4.7-year recovery.

How to Read This Table

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources