Precious metals are an insurance policy. You buy it hoping you never have to use it.

Obviously the market is manipulated, but if we ignore manipulation this is exactly what we would expect anyway. Inflation is raging because money printer go brrrr and people were locked in their home for two years. As a consequence the fed needs to raise interest rates. Raising interest rates is going to knee cap borrowers who borrowed too much due to low rates (almost everyone nowadays). Do this too aggressively and an economic contraction will be triggered (deflation, recession, depression, etc) as people default on their loans.

At the moment though we are not quite there. The fed is piss week at increasing rates. They need to hike to like 20% to reduce inflation. But because everyone is jacked to the tits they are getting raped by measley rate increases. Therefore people will be selling off everything to cover their debt obligations. Including Precious metals, crypto, stocks, etc.

The question is whether the fed will pussy out, drop rates again, and fire up the money printers. If this happens assets like precious metals, crypto, stocks will moon again as we get hyperinflation. Japan and the EU have already given up the fight against inflation. US will probably follow. Deep state probably wants to destroy the currency to usher in CBDCs. Need hyperinflation for that. If the fed increases rates like they should then expect precious metals to fall further.

Generally a deflationary period always precedes a hyperinflationary period due to people selling assets to cover debt obligations. Hang on to your precious metals as insurance incase this is what happens this time. However, if white hats are in control I would expect a depression to save the currency, rebalance it with commodities like gold, and rape every borrower in the country as the "SCARE event necessary" moment.