Stock market crash safety sought by concerned investors is coming in the form of shiny precious metals that include gleaming gold and silver coins.

Even though stock market drops usually coincide with a price hike in gold and silver, both equities and precious metals soared on March 24 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 11.37%, or 2,112.98 points, to reach 20,685.04 for its biggest percentage gain since March 1933 and its largest point rise ever. The Federal Reserve Board’s repeated intervention in recent weeks to enhance liquidity for financial institutions and corporations may have helped to mitigate a credit crisis and show that the U.S. central bank is willing to adopt inflationary policies that should boost the value of gold and silver.

Chart of the prices of gold (purple line) and silver (orange line), compared to market indices for one-month

The longest and biggest bull market in history ended abruptly as the S&P 500 plunged more than 30% in just 22 trading days to drop from its all-time high on Feb. 19. That rapid descent more than met the 20% plummet required to qualify as a bear market and caused many market observers to describe it as a stock market crash precipitated by the spread of the deadly coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

Paul Dykewicz interviews Bob Carlson (left), who chairs the Board of Trustees of Virginia’s Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System and leads the Retirement Watch advisory service.

Paul Dykewicz hears investment recommendations from Hilary Kramer, whose advisory services include 2-Day Trader, Turbo Trader,High Octane Trader, Value Authority and Inner Circle.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz.The book is endorsed by Joe Montana, Joe Theismann, Ara Paseghian, “Rocket” Ismail, Reggie Brooks, Dick Vitale and many others. Follow Paul on Twitter@PaulDykewicz.