Research — Nov 21, 2025
When Markets Move Together… and When They Absolutely Don’t
If there’s one thing the last couple of decades have taught us, it’s that markets rarely move because of a single event. They respond to the environment they’re in. And when you zoom out far enough, the behaviour of equities, gold, and silver starts to reveal patterns that don’t show up in short snapshots. Take a long look at the S&P 500, gold, and silver over this period. You’ll see three very distinct characters sharing the same stage. At times they’re aligned. At times they pull away sharply from each other. And sometimes, they behave as if they’re operating under completely different sets of rules. The takeaway is simple but important: correlation isn’t a permanent relationship – it shifts with the regime.
Legend
| Graph | Time Period | |
| — BLUE: SPDR S&P 500 ETF (ARCA:SPY), — GOLD: SPDR Gold Trust (ARCA:GLD), — PURPLE: iShares Silver Trust (ARCA:SLV) |
Apr 30 2006 - Oct 31 2025 | |
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When the world shakes, metals step up (2007-2011, 2020)
During the Global Financial Crisis, equities fell sharply while gold and silver took off. The pattern repeated during the early days of COVID: equities broke, gold stabilised, and silver – after an initial liquidity-driven drop – surged. These weren’t random moves. They were reactions to the same forces: collapsing real yields, systemic uncertainty, and flight to safety. In these regimes, metals don’t just diversify – they become the stabilisers.
When liquidity floods the system, everything rallies (2020-2021, 2023-2025)
There’s another interesting phase the chart shows – periods where equities, gold, and silver all rise together. That only happens when macro liquidity and easing conditions overpower everything else. Gold rode a wave of central-bank buying, weaker real-rate expectations, and risk-hedging. Silver benefited from both industrial demand and the same global liquidity tide. Equities marched upward on earnings resilience and abundant capital. Different assets – same fuel.
When the world normalises, gold and silver take a breather (2013-2015)
After the early-2010s surge in metals, the cycle turned. As real yields climbed and the dollar strengthened, gold cooled off and silver corrected more sharply. Equities, meanwhile, kept moving higher.
The more important insight: regimes matter far more than correlations
Across two decades of data, the message is consistent:
- Metals hedge effectively in crisis regimes
- Metals participate in liquidity regimes
- Metals lag in tightening regimes
- Equities outperform cyclically but draw down meaningfully in shocks
Markets rarely hand out straight lines. But when you understand the underlying regime – the diverse movements of equities, gold, and silver start to look less like noise and more like a structured pattern.
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