Did you know that for every bar of gold sold on the stock market, there is a bar of gold somewhere out there sitting in a deep storage vault? Swiss Precious Metals, a Geneva-based company, has a giant gold vault buried deep in the ground near Changi International Airport in Singapore. Given the state of the global economy in the last several years, investors are more interested in investing in gold bouillon than ever before. Tangible assets, like precious metals, are seen as more predictably valuable than business assets. The rooms of the Singapore vault are nearly full after demand rose significantly in the last few years. Swiss Precious Metals is even planning on expanding their storage facility to meet capacity. Additionally, Barclays Capital is building a new vault. The Brinks, the largest bullion carrier in the UK is thinking about adding more storage after opening a new vault in London just this year.
Deutsche Bank is also considering adding more space to their vaults in Frankfurt to meet current and future demand. Private Investment in the gold market is at its highest rate in a long time. Total gold ever mined totals about 169,000 tons – 31,000 tons of which is owned by private investors. As the price of gold soared over 27% this year along, so did the cost of storing and insuring it. As a rule of thumb, investors wishing to store their gold stores privately pay about 1% of the total value per year. This means that it is quite a business for gold storage companies – and only becoming a better business as the economy makes people increasingly hesitant to invest in higher risk goods. All this is protected by the best vaults ever created.
Let’s return back to the Singapore vault where Swiss Precious Metals keep their stock safely locked behind steel doors made from seven metric tons of steel – not to mention the immense number of other security measures that the storage facility have taken to prevent theft and loss of goods. While we may not anything close to seven metric tons in size, we do have some excellent safes and vaults for keeping your own, personal goods safe. More information on the current state of gold storage is available here.
