26 Apr Friday Update

"Panic Buying in Asia Leads to Physical Gold Shortage" writes BullionVault on oilngold.com

Over in Asia," there's panic buying of physical gold products", says Ronald Leung, chief dealer at Hong Kong's Lee Cheong Gold Dealers.

# "Everybody is buying gold .. the physical market is still tight. The thing is that there are no immediate stocks."

# "Although impressive in its scale", says the latest commodities note from investment bank Natixis, "this retail demand will need to be sustained for a prolonged period if is to offset not just the absence of institutional investment demand, but also potentially new investor sales in the coming weeks."

As of Thursday, the world's biggest gold exchange traded fund SPDR Gold Trust has seen outflows of 42.7 tonnes from a week earlier, taking total holdings to just under 1090.30 tonnes, their lowest level since September 2009.

# "Heavy disinvestment from ETF investors is being offset by strong physical demand in key markets such as India and China," says a note from Australian bank Macquarie, "but neither of these is likely to continue indefinitely, and which runs its course first could determine whether the price moves $100 an ounce higher or lower."

 A converging view with what we post in the morning, we've got to see who runs out first - physical buyers or institutional investors. And that will provide some guideline on direction.