Gold makes people do wild things. Ancient Egyptians melted it to decorate their dead. Sir Walter Raleigh searched for alost golden city. Shiny flakes of it set off a 19th–century rush to California and ship captains never stop looking for it at thebottom of the sea. Today’s investors are wildly selling it, with 2013 marking the first yearly gold-price drop since 2000. After jumping sevenfold during a 12-year bull market — a run matched by only a handful of assets, including U.S. Treasuries and stamps — it’s wallowing near a three-year low, down about a third from its peak. Only silver and corn performed worse among commodities in 2013.

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