Gold tumbled below $1,300 on Tuesday.
The shiny metal is down by 3.1%, to $1,271.85 an ounce as of 3:18 p.m. ET – the weakest level since June 23, the day of the Brexit vote.
The move followed a Bloomberg report from Jana Randow, Alessandro Speciale, and Jeff Black that the European Central Bank will “probably gradually wind down bond purchases before the conclusion of quantitative easing, and may do so in steps of 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) a month, according to euro-zone central-bank officials.”
Gold is considered a traditional risk-off, “end of the world” trade and is often bought up aggressively by investors in times of stress.
In other news, markets are seeing the likelihood of a November rate hike at 21.4%, and around 61.2% for a hike by the end of the year.
Moreover, the US dollar is up by 0.5%, at 96.19, following comments by Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester, who said, "We have to be a little pre-emptive in making sure that we're moving the interest rate up so that we can keep the expansion sustained."