Conflicts Lessen, Gold Prices Drop
As we’ve become accustomed to in recent weeks, gold prices once again were closely tied to geopolitical conflict, falling today while moods have calmed.
Gold bullion has been the beneficiary of several tense and destabilizing political confrontations over the past month or so. Now that those tensions have subsided to a degree, the precious metal is being abandoned by investors who forwent traditional assets in favor of the safe-haven investment in gold.
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The U.S. attack on a Syrian government target was the first major domino to fall that helped spur the shoot up in the price of gold over the past month. Followed by tensions with China and North Korea, the commodity could seem to do no wrong, as the world around us continued to fall into further political disarray.
The final boost to gold prices came when Marine Le Pen and her anti-euro National Front party stood a very real chance at occupying the French presidency.
Now all of those events have retreated from their former crisis points, in one fashion or another.
Tensions remain high with North Korea, although the United States has yet to formally launch an attack on the rogue nation.
In France, Le Pen will enter the runoff election on May 7, but the polls heavily favor her centrist opponent, Emmanuel Macron, of the En Marche! party.
With China, the U.S. had what was, by all accounts, a productive meeting between the two heads of state, who now are said to be in talks concerning the North Korea issue.
In Syria, the war rages on, but the U.S. has not made any further direct attacks on government targets since the first one that came after the alleged use of chemical weaponry deployed by Syrian government forces.
Gold prices are often linked to political upheaval, which was ripe in March and much of April, although multiple flashpoints have begun to wind down from their previously tense positions.
