After investor demand for gold hit a monthly high of $102.7m (£74m, €86.8m) in March 2020, it has dropped back sharply to just $1.4m a year later, according to figures from BullionVault.
Coinciding with the global pandemic, investors bought two tonnes of the precious metal from companies like Apmex in the third month of last year.
This compares with just 24 kilograms in March 2021.
Equal to only 4% of the prior 12-month average inflow, it was the weakest net demand by weight since January 2020.
Missing in action
Commenting on the data, BuillionVault director of research Adrian Ash said: “While it was always going to be hard for previous metals to repeat 2020’s record investment inflows, the rush to bet on a global economic boom post-covid is making it tougher still.
“Gold is struggling to compete for attention.”
He continued: “The action in gold isn’t yet bearish but it has become very boring, and although selling has retreated as prices have dropped, we haven’t seen any meaningful bargain hunting to date.
“Gold is likely to stay side-lined for as long as equities keep surging in anticipation of the economy re-opening. It could be missing from many more portfolios by the time the crisis being seeded by today’s massive pro-cyclical monetary and fiscal stimulus arrives.”
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