How negative real yields impact gold
A real yield is the return on a 10-year Treasury after inflation; below zero, a bond holder loses buying power, so gold's lack of interest costs nothing by comparison.
The record has only two such stretches since the TIPS series begins in 2003, 45 months in all.
From Feb 2020 to Apr 2022 gold rose 24.1%; from Dec 2011 to May 2013 it fell 18.7%, with real yields still below zero.
Across both, gold compounded +0.2% a year and silver −1.5%, far behind their +8.9% and +6.9% long-run pace.
An explainer from the chart's Learn library. What the record did, not a forecast.
Updated Oct 2026 · record through Oct 2026