LONDON: Gold eased on Thursday, hurt by a sharp drop in oil prices, strength in the dollar and fresh outflows from bullion-backed funds, with traders cautious ahead of this weekend’s Swiss referendum on central bank bullion assets.

Spot gold was down 0.3 per cent at $1,193.85 an ounce at 1549 GMT, while US gold futures for December delivery were down $3.80 an ounce at $1,192.80.

Swiss voters go to the polls on Sunday to decide a motion that would oblige the Swiss National Bank to hold 20pc of its reserves in bullion, repatriate gold from overseas, and undertake to make no gold sales.

Outflows from the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Shares, resumed on Wednesday.
Holdings fell 2.1 tonnes to 718.82 tonnes, near six-year lows.

Silver was down 1pc at $16.30 an ounce, while platinum was down 0.6pc at $1,215.24.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2014