China is the world's top gold producer and will soon be the largest consumer too. Chinese consumers, encouraged by last year's price slide, snapped up 1,176 tonnes of the yellow metal, a 41% increase on 2012.
Demand for gold jewellery rose 43% to 716 tonnes, but it is also increasingly seen as an investment. Gold bar sales jumped by 57% to 375 tonnes. Demand for gold in China and other emerging markets has helped prop up prices.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
-
Rural homes beat urban properties for price growth – where are house prices soaring?We look at the top performing rural local authorities for house price growth
-
Santander axes 1% cashback on spending for Edge account customersSantander will stop awarding cashback on everyday spending for its Edge customers, limiting cashback to just bills
-
This chart pattern could be extraordinarily bullish for goldCharts The mother of all patterns is developing in the gold charts, says Dominic Frisby. And if everything plays out well, gold could hit a price that investors could retire on.
-
Chart of the week: silver has some catching up to doCharts It takes 76 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold. Yet the average over the past century has been 40.
-
Chart of the week: gold gets high on Trump’s tweetsCharts Gold slipped in the weeks after Donald Trump’s election, but it has bounced back to a two-month high, and there should be further to go.
-
Chart of the week: gold’s record surge against sterlingCharts As the EU referendum results emerged, gold rose more than 6% overnight in dollar terms as nervous investors piled in. Priced in sterling, the overnight jump was 22%, a record move.
-
Chart of the week: gold loses its lustreCharts The amount of cash invested in America’s biggest gold-backed exchange-traded find, the SPDR Gold ETF, is a stark illustration of investors’ growing disenchantment with gold.
