Gold dips on vaccine hopes

Gold fell once again on Wednesday as continued enthusiasm surrounding a possible Covid-19 vaccine saw investors move away from the safe-haven asset.

The yellow metal fell almost 5 per cent on Monday afternoon trading, after Pfizer and BioNTech announced preliminary results that their coronavirus vaccine could be more than 90 per cent effective.

Although it recovered on Tuesday as investors rotated out of tech stocks and the market slightly corrected for the rushed sell-off of the day before, gold moved downwards once again on Wednesday as hopes gathered for an end to Covid-19 uncertainty.

By late-afternoon, spot gold traded 0.7 per cent lower at $1,863.11.

While one of the main beneficiaries of the global disruption wrought by the pandemic may have continued to slide, others fared much better.

By late-morning (EDT), work-from-home favourites Zoom Video Communications and Slack traded up by 4.4 and 4.9 per cent, respectively.

Not everyone is positive that the global economy is out of the Covid-19 woods. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has once again placed a $27m hedge betting against corporate defaults.

Ackman stated:

“We’re in a treacherous time generally and what’s fascinating is the same bet we put on eight months ago is available on the same terms as if there had never been a fire and on the probability that the world is going to be fine.”

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