Commodities: Gold markedly lower on Macron's first-round win in France presidential vote

The price of gold was markedly lower on Monday afternoon as investors reacted with ecstasy to centrist and pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron winning the first round of France's presidential election.

At about 15:30 GMT, on Comex, gold was down 1.3% to $1272.30 an ounce. Silver fell 0.71% to $17.81 an ounce, and copper rose 0.06% to 255.25 cents a pound.

"Markets have written off (far-right hopeful) Marine Le Pen as French President in 2017 and with it the existential threat to the euro and the redenomination risk of all French assets," said Jasper Lawler, senior market analyst at London Capital Group.

"With European election risk seemingly out of the picture, havens like gold ... were out of favour," added Lawler.

"Gold looks a little top-heavy near $1300 per oz but US policy uncertainty should put a floor under any larger sell-off," he added.

Joshua Mahony, market analyst at IG, said the move back into risk assets means the chief losers have been the likes of gold and the yen, with stock markets moving sharply higher.

"We are seeing a substantial amount of hedges unwound this morning with most seeing this as the end of the political upheaval, hence the sharp gains for European stocks and the euro," commented Mahony earlier in the session.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, also noted gold's turn lower was due to the prospect of a Macron presidency.

"The decline (in gold) remains modest which suggests that while one area of uncertainty has been potentially been settled," said Hewson.

He cautioned, however, that there were plenty of other reasons to remain cautious about the global environment, including tensions over North Korea and Syria.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mostly lower. Zinc fell 1.82%, tin fell 0.63% and aluminum shed 0.49%. Copper was flat.

Meanwhile, Nymex-priced WTI crude was down 0.4% to $49.42 a barrel. Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was down 0.31% to $51.80 a barrel.

"The upbeat start to the week has seen oil prices edge higher but another weekly rise in US rig counts has once again tempered upside momentum with US prices struggling to gain traction back above $50 a barrel," said Hewson.