Precious metals tumbled on Wednesday on heavy selling by fund managers on technical price signals, weak oil prices and a rise in US silver futures margins.
Silver slipped more than 3 percent, while gold and platinum fell to three-week lows after losing 1.6 percent and three percent respectively.
"It looks like the sell-off in silver is because of the raising of margins and the sell-off in gold is a continuation of some fund liquidation," said Peter Hillyard, head of metals sales at ANZ Investment Bank.
"Probably dollar strength started it and then what happens inevitably in these markets is that it triggers stop-loss selling, which is usually placed around important chart points." Some investors place an order to sell a commodity when prices reach a certain level in an attempt to limit losses.
Spot gold fell as low as $543.00 an ounce and was at $544.20/544.90 by 1523 GMT, compared with $551.90/552.80 in New York late on Tuesday, when it dropped nearly $4. It had surged to a 25-year high of $574.60 in early February.
Gold has fallen nearly five percent from Friday's three-week highs.
Oil prices slid as Opec agreed to keep output close to full throttle and Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, reiterated it would not stop crude exports over its nuclear row with the West.
The dollar fell slightly against the euro on Wednesday after spiking earlier in the week.
"There is no market-specific impetus for fresh long positions to be established at present. Sentiment has been weakened by weakness across commodities over the past few days and the dollar is holding up well," said Yingxi Yu, precious metals analyst at Barclays Capital.
"And technical trends are not looking too favourable at the moment," she said, adding that $535 was an important level which, if breached, might spark further losses.
Base metals continued to buckle under liquidation in London Metal Exchange (LME) trading as bullish sentiment faded and investment funds looked to depart the market.
The price drop in bullion was expected to lift physical buying in India, the world's largest gold consumer.
Silver fell following the New York Mercantile Exchange's announcement that it has raised margins for silver futures to $2,500 from $2,250 for clearing and non-clearing members and to $3,375 from $3,038 for customers.
Spot silver slipped to $9.67 an ounce before recovering to $9.78/9.81, still far below $10.08/10.11 seen late in New York. The metal had surged to a 22-year high on Friday.
Platinum sank to $1,005 an ounce before rising to $1,010/1,014, compared with $1,036/1,041 in New York. Palladium fell to $282/286 an ounce from $287/292.
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