Costco’s Gold Bar Sale

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Costco’s Gold Bar Sale

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Why is Costco selling gold bars? Physical gold has always been a hedge against inflation and, some say, an unpredictable stock market. However, gold prices are unpredictable as well. Gold traded for $1,665 an ounce a year ago and changes hands for about $1,893 today. (These companies have the best reputations.)
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According to CNBC, Costco sells 1-ounce gold PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan bars. And the big-box retailer is sold out. “I’ve gotten a couple of calls that people have seen online that we’ve been selling 1 ounce gold bars. Yes, but when we load them on the site, they’re typically gone within a few hours, and we limit two per member.”
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According to The World Council, gold is primarily held by investors and central banks and for construction. Another large amount of the world’s gold is used to make jewelry. People can buy physical gold or buy exchange-traded funds that track its price.

Among the recent increases are purchases by central banks, which hit an all-time high in the first half of the year. Buying by banks hit 387 tonnes. Gold bought for investment purposes over the same period was 582 tonnes.
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The supply of gold is rising. According to The World Gold Council, “total gold supply was 7% higher y/y at 1,255t in Q2, with mine production estimated to have reached a record for H1 of 1,781t.”
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Most of the world’s gold is mined in China, Russia and South Africa. Modern mining methods have speeded the pace at which gold is produced from these mines.

Why is gold so popular at Costco? It may be because gold bars are a novelty. Or people may be worried about the economy and markets.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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