Physical demand for the safe-haven asset jumped 34% year over year to 1,234 tonnes in the first three months of 2022, according to a report from the World Gold Council released Thursday. That’s the highest quarterly demand increase the gold market has seen since 2018. “There will be more demand for gold as a safe haven as long as the world is in disarray and as long as the war is raging in Ukraine,” Kevin Rich, a global gold market adviser to the Perth Mint, the official bullion mint of the government of Western Australia, told Fortune. “Until the Fed can really get their arms around inflation, gold demand as a hedge should be there.”
Global gold demand was 19% above its five-year average of 1,039 tonnes in the first quarter.
The rise was largely driven by the strongest quarterly inflows to gold ETFs since 2020, the gold council said. Gold ETF holdings jumped by 269 tonnes in the first three months of the year, more than making up for the 174-tonne annual outflow seen in 2021.
Central banks also added 84 tonnes to their global gold reserves in the quarter, with net buying more than doubling from the fourth quarter of 2021.
Poster Comment:
Russia and China were steady buyers 5 years ago. Now the rest of the world is buying physical gold.