Investing.com -- Gold prices fell to a fresh three-month low on Monday, failing to get meaningful support from a general risk-off move in other markets on a day when hopes of a trade truce between the U.S. and China faded.
By 11:15 AM ET (1615 GMT), gold futures for delivery on the Comex exchange were down 1.0% at $1,454.65. a troy ounce, having fallen earlier through the $1,450 level for the first time in more than three months.
Spot gold was down 0.3% at $1,453.66 an ounce.
The move was all the more striking for taking place when the U.S. bond market was shut for Veterans' Day, restricting the choice of those who might have sought haven assets as stocks retreated from last week's highs.
While there was no clear catalyst for the fall, most of which happened during U.S. hours, some U.K.-driven haven buying - a key prop of this year's rally among portolio investors - may have unwound after the U.K. Brexit Party said it wouldn't fight sitting Conservative lawmakers in the upcoming election on Dec. 12. That improves the chances of a Conservative majority in parliament and thus the completion of the U.K.'s withdrawal from the EU in the new year.
Silver futures and platinum futures were also battered, as the reversal that started last week shook out some of the weaker speculative long positions that have accumulated in recent weeks.
According to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data published on Friday, speculative long interest in gold futures hit their highest level in six weeks last week, while long silver positions also stayed at historically high levels despite a modest decline.
But the trend of recent months could be about to turn, according to cross-asset analysts at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) led by John Normand.
"In our view, this fall marks the beginning of a bottoming out process in the global economy, judging from leading-edge indicators like inventory measures, manufacturing new orders indices and manufacturing output PMIs," Normand's team wrote in a weekly note to clients.
As such, it may be time to rotate out of defensive commodities such as gold and into cyclical ones such as oil and base metals, they said.
There wasn't much sign of industrial commodities benefiting on Monday though. Copper futures also fell 0.6% to $2.67 a pound, while aluminum futures fell 1.2% in London.