(USA TODAY) If you bought gold to protect against a global market collapse, you had a dress rehearsal Monday. Unfortunately, the collapse hit the gold market, too. The price of an ounce of gold plunged $140.40 Monday to $1360.60, or 9.4%, the worst one-day drop in 30 years. "It's been a brutal market, and it really turned nasty today," says Dan Denbow, manager of USAA Precious Metals and Minerals fund. Gold has fallen about 28% since its high of nearly $1,900 an ounce in 2011. Silver got tarnished as well, falling $2.97 to $23.36, or 11.3%, an ounce. On Tuesday, around 8:30 a.m. ET, gold was showing a bit of a bounce, up $29.80 an ounce to $1,390.90. Worries about rising inflation sparked by the Federal Reserve's monetary policies and the U.S. national debt had sent gold soaring from its low of $255.55 an ounce in 2001. As gold surged during the 2008-2009 bear market in stocks, gold bulls touted the yellow metal's ability to be a store of value in hard times. Rumors swirled around what caused gold's Monday tumble. Some believed that selling by the central bank of Cyprus may have started the fall. Although its reserves are tiny by central bank standards — about 40 metric tons, vs. 8,133 tons for the U.S. — traders worried that other troubled European countries might start selling their gold reserves as well. Greece, for example, has 112 tons of gold. Others thought that the sellers may have been more interested in pushing down the price of gold for more nefarious reasons, such as profiting from short selling — a bet on falling prices. Gold Plunge image