Following durable goods orders for October that more than lived up to their name and dispelled any notion of election-related uncertainty restraining business activity ahead of the event, the yield on five-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (or TIPS) broke into positive territory, hitting levels not seen since March 16, as gold tumbled.

The thinking here is that the value of a hard asset with a yield of zero (net of storage costs) will be affected by the relative real yield on assets that are considered risk free, an alternative holding. In other words, the so-called opportunity cost of buying gold rises as real Treasury yields increase.