MEASURED RESULT
The gold-price path after August 5, 2011.
Gold rose 2.06% in the first post-downgrade session, 4.66% after five sessions and 14.24% after 20 sessions, then retained a 3.81% gain at session 60.
- Maximum advance
- +14.24%
- Maximum drawdown
- -3.66%
- Study horizon
- 60 London PM sessions
PRICE COMPARISON
One baseline, four consistent windows.
Returns are measured from the last available London PM benchmark before the event to the specified number of subsequent benchmark sessions.
$1,693.00 per troy ounce
$1,736.00 per troy ounce
$1,895.00 per troy ounce
$1,722.00 per troy ounce
Baseline: $1,658.75 on August 5, 2011. Price source: LBMA Gold Price PM. GoldPriceNow calculations are rounded to two decimal places.
EVENT ANCHOR
Why this date starts the comparison.
S&P lowered the United States’ long-term sovereign credit rating from AAA to AA+ on August 5, 2011. Because the announcement followed that Friday’s benchmark, the first post-event London PM session was August 8.
Event source: U.S. Treasury/FSOC report on the 2011 downgrade.
INTERPRETATION
What the price path shows.
A historical return is an observation, not proof that the selected event caused every part of the move.
The strongest measured endpoint came after 20 sessions. Gold then surrendered much of that advance, although the 60-session benchmark remained above its August 5 level.
The path overlapped with the U.S. debt-ceiling debate, falling Treasury yields and broader market stress. The result should therefore be read as an event-window comparison, not a clean estimate of the downgrade’s isolated effect.
The downgrade occurred amid several related fiscal and market developments. A single date cannot separate the rating action from information that investors had already priced or from policy responses that followed.