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When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24th, investors did what they normally do in times of geopolitical uncertainty -- they rushed to safe-haven assets like gold, whose price surged from $1,912 an ounce to a heady $2,057 on March 8th.

Since then, gold prices have reversed course faster than the Russians retreated from Kharkiv – the shiny metal fell to a two-year low on Friday – for reasons that have nothing to do with demand for fancy birthday gifts or mining production in Australia. First, an extremely strong dollar has made gold more expensive in other currencies -- gold is typically denominated in USD -- causing many commodity traders to rotate into other assets. Second, surging yields have increased the opportunity cost of holding gold relative to just 9 months ago. The fallout has been a lot of red for the precious yellow metal:

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Source Fool.com