Spot gold slipped $17.10, or 0.42%, to $4,070.10 an ounce on Nov. 6, according to Kitco’s live price quote. That trims the value of bullion and coins held in retirement accounts by the same fraction. A 10-ounce holding lost $171 on the day, and a $100,000 gold position lost roughly $420.
Silver moved the other way. Kitco’s quote showed silver at $51.82 an ounce, up $0.14, or 0.28%, in a quote updated at 5:40 p.m. ET. Gold’s range for the day ran from $4,029.50 to $4,107.90, so the $17.10 dip sat well inside a swing of about $78 from low to high.
The people who feel a move like this are retirees whose IRA holds physical metal. For them the useful questions are how large the dip is against the account, and how the IRS treats gold held there. The first answer is small. The second has rules that catch people out.
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Where gold stood on Nov. 6
Kitco’s gold spot page showed a bid of $4,070.10 and an ask of $4,072.10 in late evening trading on Nov. 6, down $17.10 on the day. Gold spot trades nearly around the clock, so the page carries a running quote, not an official daily close. That puts the prior level at about $4,087.20.
The session was choppy. Gold’s low for the day, $4,029.50, sat $57.70 below that prior level, and its high, $4,107.90, was $20.70 above it. The late quote landed near the middle of that range, which is why the net change of $17.10 looks small beside it.
The quote sits well above where gold stood on election day. Kitco’s PM report for Nov. 3, election day, had gold near $3,924.10, down 0.55%, and silver near $49.45, down 2.13%. Measured from that evening, gold is up about $146 an ounce and silver about $2.37.
The Nov. 3 selling came from strong data. September job openings rose to 7.523 million against a forecast near 7.15 million, factory orders rose 1.8% against about 1.2% expected, and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed about 5.8 basis points to 4.951%. Higher yields tend to weigh on gold, which pays no interest.
The Federal Reserve held its rate at 3.75% to 4.00% at its most recent meeting before that, Kitco notes, with two policymakers favoring an immediate quarter-point increase. That keeps a December hike under discussion. Kitco Research also found gold rose an average of 14% in the 12 months after each of the last 13 midterm elections.
What a $17.10 dip does to a retirement account
The arithmetic is plain. A move of 0.42% on a $50,000 gold position is about $210, on $100,000 about $420 and on $250,000 about $1,050. Most retirees hold gold as a slice of a larger account, so the loss on the whole balance is smaller still.
The bigger issue is how gold sits inside the account at all. The IRS says that under the tax code, gold and other bullion count as collectibles, and the law discourages holding them in an IRA. An exception covers certain highly refined bullion held in the physical possession of a bank or an IRS-approved nonbank trustee.
The IRS’s page on collectibles in individually directed accounts lists what qualifies. Certain gold, silver and platinum coins described in 31 U.S.C. 5112 are not treated as collectibles, nor is any coin issued under a state’s laws, nor gold, silver, platinum or palladium bullion of a required fineness held by that kind of trustee.
Getting it wrong is costly. If an individually directed account acquires a collectible, the IRS treats the cost as a distribution in the year of purchase. That amount is generally taxed as ordinary income, and the 10% additional tax on early withdrawals may apply to anyone under age 59 and a half.
Year-end prices and required withdrawals
Price swings matter most around Dec. 31. The IRS says a required minimum distribution equals the prior Dec. 31 account balance divided by a distribution period from its tables. For a traditional IRA that holds metal, the balance on that date feeds next year’s required withdrawal, so a higher or lower gold price on one day moves the bill.
Roth IRAs follow different rules, since the IRS notes that required minimum distributions do not apply to a Roth IRA. A retiree whose gold sits in a Roth faces no required withdrawal tied to the year-end price, though the same collectibles rules still govern what the account may hold.
Silver falls under the same IRS exceptions as gold, with its own coin and bullion standards. The metals diverged on Nov. 6, with silver edging up while gold slipped, and both stand above their Nov. 3 evening quotes.
For a retiree weighing the move, one session of $17.10 is noise against a roughly $146 climb since Nov. 3. What counts is how much of the account sits in metal, whether a bank or approved trustee holds it, and how much cash is set aside outside it to cover bills when prices fall.
Is the cash cushion outside the gold?
Gold can drop on a strong jobs report and still be a small piece of a retirement. The piece that pays bills in a down month is the cash cushion, and many cushions sit in an account that earns almost nothing.
Make Your Savings Pay You is a guide to the places that pay more than a near-zero bank account while keeping every dollar insured, even above $250,000 at one bank. It also covers high-yield savings for the cushion a household might need this year. It does not pick an investment for anyone.
Its Copy it section gives a ladder that sets money to come due on a schedule, and a cash map worksheet lays out what the cash earns now.
Get the insured-savings guide with the cash map worksheet →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
