Too much leverage & margin calls - Traders went crazy with high leverage 50x–100x in futures. A small dump turned into forced selling, which started a chain of liquidations wiping out trillions in paper gains.
2).Profit taking after a crazy rally - Gold is up 160% and Silver is up nearly 380% in the last 2 years. So people are locking in massive profits during a parabolic rally.
3. Microsoft - MSFT dropped 11% today on weak cloud/AI growth numbers + Morgan Stanley removing it from top picks. This pulled the Nasdaq and S&P 500 lower.
4. Metals were now in bubble territory - Gold and silver were at their most overbought levels ever in history. So the market did a quick flush to shake out the weak hands.
5. No real news or big event - This crash was just pure post-unwinding. There is no major policy change or war event triggering it.