The investment platform saw a 119% increase in the number of customers buying physical gold in the aftermath of the shock announcement in what chief executive Josh Saul labelled a “textbook inverse relationship between sterling and gold”.
The gold price spiked on Tuesday morning ahead of May’s announcement, then fell once sterling began to strengthen on the back of the news.
One banking client at The Pure Gold Company bought £1.3m ($1.67m, €1.55m) worth of the metal once the price hit £1,007 an ounce, Saul said.
The increase in gold sales comes after a good performance for the asset in recent weeks with ETF Securities reporting strong gold ETF flows.
It trounced all other product sectors in early April with $41.9m of inflows in just one week.
Saul also linked the popularity of gold with fall in confidence over markets as global tensions between the likes of the US and North Korea heighten.
He said: “Over the last few days, confidence in financial markets has been depressed. We’ve had many clients removing exposure to equities as they fear the worst-case scenario between North Korea and US.
“They believe that both leaders are inclined to fight, which adds to the unpredictability of the global political and economic environment, and this lends itself to gold sales as a relatively secure investment or a form of portfolio insurance.”
An “unprecedented” number of people had also allocated more than 30% of their portfolio to physical gold in recent weeks, Saul added.
“We always suggest that customers use gold as a hedge, investing only some of their wealth, up to 15 or 20%, in gold rather than putting all their eggs in one basket.”
