The losses, June 7 -- The gold bar that fetched $5,263 an ounce on the last day of February is worth roughly $4,329 today. In the hundred days since the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran on February 28, precious metals have traced an arc that defied the safe-haven logic investors relied on going in: an initial spike to records, then a collapse driven not by peace but by something more structurally damaging - the prospect of rates staying high for longer in an inflationary war economy.

the record highs of January, the brief panic-buying that followed the outbreak of fighting, and then the grinding selloff that set in once investors understood what kind of war this actually was.

The conflict's economic log...