By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Gold bowed out of April trading with a gain of more than 6% that gave it a second-straight monthly win.
But that win was not without cost for the safe-haven crowd behind the yellow metal, which saw its hold on the $1,700 perch crumble after five-straight days of losses, the first such losing streak in six weeks.
“Gold remains in consolidation mode,” said Craig Erlam, senior markets analyst at New York-based OANDA. “We may have to get used to this for a little longer yet as it's not entirely clear what its role is in these broader markets.”
Gold futures for June delivery on New York’s COMEX settled down $19.20, or 1.1%, at $1,694.20 per ounce. For the month, though, it rose 6.5%.
Spot gold, which tracks live trades in bullion, slid by $26.11, or 1.5%, to $1,686.75 by 3:38 PM ET (19:38 GMT).
Gold initially ramped up in April on worries over the impact of Covid-19 on the United States as tens of millions of jobs were lost by Americans and the Trump administration embarked on trillions of dollars of spending to rescue the nation from the pandemic.
But over the past week, the yellow metal has steadily declined on signs that more than half of the 50 U.S. states that had been on lockdown from the pandemic were reopening in stages, diminishing the potential for the safe haven.