UK's Brexit trigger fails to draw safe-haven bets on gold

Contrary to popular market perception, the official triggering of Brexit by the UK government on Wednesday (29 March) did little to spark safe-haven calls in the precious metals market, considered the norm at times of significant geopolitical events.

Faced with a stronger dollar, at 3:15pm BST, the Comex gold futures contract was down 0.41% or $5.20 to $1,253.60 an ounce, while spot gold was down 0.06% or 72¢ to $1,52.54 an ounce, as Prime Minister Theresa May officially invoked the European Union's Article 50 clause to begin the UK's formal process of exiting the bloc.

Concurrently, Comex silver contract was down 0.37% or 7¢ to $18.19 an ounce, while spot platinum was down 0.26% or $2.46 to $952.14 an ounce.

Gold, which had been the primary beneficiary of recent dollar weakness, found little to latch on to from the UK's triggering of Article 50, with many in the market opining that the event had already been priced in.

FXTM's Vice President of Market Research, Jameel Ahmad said traders will now be monitoring whether any additional moves towards risk-off from investors and further losses in the equity markets provide the platform for the value of gold to continue the recovery the yellow metal has experienced in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, oil futures remained on positive turf as the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) gained 0.39% or 19¢ to $48.56 per barrel, while Brent was up 0.41% or 21¢ to $51.54 per barrel.

"While gold is one of the commodities that is enjoying consistent buying momentum, oil is most certainly not and has resumed its weakness into the new trading week despite reports circulating over the weekend that major oil producing nations will consider extending their recent cuts in production," Ahmad added.

Oil futures recovered from recent lows overnight with market sentiment turning yet again in favour of oil production cuts, instituted by 11 non-Opec producers in concert with Opec, being extended.

The historic agreement, a first of its kind in 15 years, was inked by both sets of producers in December 2016. It was designed to take almost 1.8m barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil production offline and is due to expire towards the end of June.

Qatar's energy minister and its chief Opec envoy Mohammed Saleh Al-Sada told the Qatar-UK Business and Investment Forum in London that the agreement should be extended "beyond the third quarter of 2017" for the crude market stockpile overhang to ease.