The U.S. took another enormous blow on Monday. Nearly 75 percent of 23,000 Boston Marathon runners had crossed the finish line at about 2:50 p.m. when two explosions rocked the Back Bay within 15 seconds, and 100 yards, of one another. The crude, pressure-cooker-encased explosives filled with nails, BBs and ball bearings, killed an eight-year-old boy, a 29-year-old woman and a Chinese Boston University graduate student and maimed at least 183 civilians.

The Boston terror attacks punctuated a Monday afternoon already in the midst of a massive U.S. market swoon. Gold plunged as fears of inflation faded, despite seemingly infinite monetary easing in the U.S. and abroad. Having risen for 12 consecutive years, gold continued its decline the next day as well, before stabilizing somewhat.