truthingold.com / By truthing / May 16, 2013, 08:44
Investors didn’t buy enough physical gold to offset outflows from gold-exchanged traded funds in the first quarter, but total ETF gold holdings were still higher than a year ago, and demand for jewelry, bars and coins grew a lot thanks to China and India, a report from the World Gold Council released Thursday shows.
The report helps shed light on demand during the period just before April’s plunge in gold-futures prices and steep outflows from gold ETFs.
Gold dropped below $1,400 on Wednesday, approaching prices not seen since its historic plunge a month ago.
In the three months covering January through March, gold futures lost nearly 5%, while shares in the largest gold-backed ETF in the U.S., the SPDR Gold Trust fell 4.7%. In the month of April, gold futures lost 7.8% while GLD shares fell 7.6%.
“In the first quarter of this year, we saw the first increase in demand for gold jewelry in the U.S. market in seven years,” said Jason Toussaint, chief executive officer of World Gold Trust Services, the sponsor of the SPDR Gold Trust. WGTS is a subsidiary of the World Gold Council.