A recent report by Thomson Reuters has shown that during 2013 gold retail figures actually rose 31% despite the apparent ETF outflows that dominated the media hype surrounding the yellow metal.
The latest gold price shows a drop of nearly 2% on Tuesday as equities rose higher and fears continued over the apparent slowing demand in top gold consumer China.
For the near term we would expect the gold price to remain changeable and to feed off Ukrainian developments. Although in the mid to long term we envisage further equity gains to take their toll on the yellow metal. Which in turn is likely to spur bar and coin demand as we saw in 2013.