For assets that many investors treat as protection, the speed and scale of the wipeout in gold and silver on Friday was unnerving. The immediate instinct is to ask what went wrong - but that misses the point. The real lesson from this selloff is not about direction or valuation. It is about liquidity - and what happens when too much capital tries to exit the same "safe" trades at once. The scale of the move is larger than many realize. The sharp pullback across gold (GC00) and silver (SI00) erased an estimated $7.4 trillion in combined market value, based on above-ground supply and prevailing spot prices. Gold's 9% ... (full story)