Gold dropped to the lowest level in four months amid optimism over Covid-19 vaccine developments and the triggering of a formal transition process to President-elect Joe Biden.
The General Services Administration acknowledged Biden as the apparent winner of the presidential election on Monday, following weeks of inaction, and President Donald Trump called on his agencies and departments to cooperate. Biden plans to nominate former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to serve as his Treasury secretary, people familiar with the matter said.
After rallying to a record in August, bullion prices are taking a hit amid vaccine progress and the recent outflow from gold-backed exchange-traded funds. The Covid-19 shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca prevented a majority of people from getting the disease in a large trial, another promising development in the quest to end the pandemic, and the rollout could begin next month.
Spot gold declined as much as 0.6% to $1 826.47 an ounce, the lowest level since July, and traded at $1 829.42 at 9:49 a.m. in Singapore. Silver dropped 1.1%, platinum rose 0.5% and palladium was little changed. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%.