Gold Shops in Europe Out of Stock Due to Panic Buying
posted on
May 16, 2010 11:26PM
It is increasingly difficult to get physical gold or silver in Germany, where the biggest buying stampede ever registered is taking place. Especially smaller online shops for precious metals didn´t have enough stock to cope with the demand, but even the biggest retailers warn of long waiting times and shortages.
Pro Aurum, one of the leading online shops for bullion in Germany, is displaying a "shop closed" message since Thursday. The leading German bullion website "Goldseiten.de" announced an enormous surge in visitors, which their four web servers couldn´t handle at the peaks. According to their statement, the demand of gold investors is now significantly stronger than after the Lehman collapse, even while the gold price is twice as high now. But the shops are better prepared this time and it is still possible to buy coins and bars at some places, which is also credited to the fact that the panic is limited to Europe at the moment.
This is confirmed by the Australian Mint, announcing that they sold 243,500 OZ of physical gold during the last two weeks, more than in the entire first quarter. The orders came nearly exclusively from Europe and the Australian Mint sees signs of "panic buys".
It seems that the emergency trillion dollar rescue package of the Euro zone and the IMF sparked a deep rooted fear among European investors. Open criticism towards the measures from countless senior analysts and retired central bankers, warning of high inflation, didn´t help to calm down people. The Euro dropped to new lows to the USD while the gold price reached a new record high in both currencies. The gold price in euro is at an all time high of 990 EUR and close to go to uncharted four-digit territory.