Performance of Various Assets including Precious Metals in General Market Declines

 

First, let's realize that not all 'crashes' are the same. 

They are precipitated in different ways from different contexts, and with post decline actions by the fiscal and monetary authorities, and of course exogenous events. 

This expresses as the duration of the decline from top to bottom, and the speed and duration of the 'recovery.'

The Crash of 1987 was a 'liquidation event' that occurred as a break in confidence during a market bubble based on faulty fads and assumptions including portfolio insurance.

 In a liquidation event almost everything is sold in a panic to raise liquidity (cash).

The recovery was facilitated by the monetary actions of then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Here is a picture of the tech bubble collapse of 2000-2002 

Although the miners (HUI) in this case took a heavy hit in the initial decline, their recovery was notable in its outperformance.

There is a similar scenario for the Crash of 1929-33, but the price of gold is heavily influenced by the actions taken in the gold market by the government. Monetary gold was withdrawn from circulation, and afterwards revalued higher to help stabilize the banking system.

The performance of Homestake Mining post crash is legendary.