High-yield assets are in, gold is out

AS the US dollar's strength continues to gather momentum, it's inspiring Asian investors to seek high-yielding assets, while pushing the price of gold to lows not seen in almost a year. Once the safe-haven precious metal of choice for jittery investors, the sheen on gold is lacking its lustre of late.

In fact, when combined with concerns over China's economic growth, prices of several commodities have fallen to pre-Great Recession lows recently, with precious metals' pricing bearing the brunt of investor worries. Many expect the price of gold to slide below its current eight-month low.

Evidently investors are confident that geopolitical events, including the Ukraine-Russia conflict, ongoing Mid-east tensions and the aftermath of the Scottish referendum, won't disrupt financial markets for long or to a significant degree. Investors worldwide are becoming increasingly bearish after the Federal Reserve raised interest rate-hike expectations, in turn prompting traders to turn away from both gold and silver - silver dropped to a four-year low recently. Exacerbating gold's plight as a safe-haven hedge is Europe's deflationary problem. It's safe to say that gold will not be in high demand with European investors for a while.