MW Gold prices tumble below $5,000, silver is under $75 as China holidays dent support

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Precious metals are under pressure on Tuesday, as China's Lunar New Year holiday kicks off.

Gold's fragile hold on $5,000 gave way to selling on Tuesday, with an even bigger loss for silver as support for precious metals took a hit from the start of China's new year's holiday.

While paring a bigger, earlier loss, gold futures (GC00) were still down 2.2%, or $109.30 at $4,936 an ounce, after gaining 1.43% last week to finish at $5,022 an ounce. The precious metal has gained 8 of the past 10 weeks.

Silver (SI00) slumped $4.00, or 5.2%, to $73.92 an ounce.

Among other metals, copper prices (HG00) fell 2.3% to $5.668 a pound and platinum (PL00) slumped 4.2% to $1,988 an ounce.

The declines came as the Lunar New Year holiday kicked off, which means those buyers are not around to shore up those assets. "The move highlights the importance of Asian - and especially Chinese - demand, which helped propel prices higher in recent months," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, in comments on X.

"January's parabolic advance, driven by strong regional demand and investor flows, was followed by an equally historic correction. With the marginal buyer temporarily absent, metals are now struggling to regain momentum," Hansen added in comments posted online.

As gold dropped the dollar was slightly stronger, with the ICE Dollar Index DXY up 0.2% to 97.15. The strategist said that while a weaker dollar in recent months has supported hard assets, positioning has increasingly become one-sided.

"Bank of America's latest FX sentiment survey shows fund managers holding their most bearish dollar stance in a decade. Such consensus does not guarantee a reversal, but it raises the risk of a counter-trend rebound," he said.

The dollar and gold often have an inverse relationship.

Still, Hansen said gold's structural drivers remain in place, with central bank buying and rising government deficits and sovereign debt levels reinforcing gold's store of value.

Bank of America's February global fund manager survey released on Tuesday showed a long gold position among those investors was the most crowded for the second straight month.

David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, said silver was doing Tuesday what it's known best for, "exhibiting oversized intra-day volatility as traders knock it around as they attempt to find clear areas of support and resistance.

"That could mean that $70 is retested soon, or that dip buyers come in to take advantage of lower prices once the U.S. reopens," he told clients in a note.

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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February 17, 2026 08:43 ET (13:43 GMT)

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