All I want for Christmas is Au

Gold last traded at $1,783 an ounce. Silver at $22.83 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices steadied Monday as upbeat economic data boosted the dollar. U.S. stocks rebounded from a major sell-off last week spurred by concerns over the Covid omicron variant.

Quartz--"Frankincense and myrrh aren't setting the commodities markets on fire, but gold is in high demand-as both Christmas gift and investment - for the second mid-pandemic holiday season in a row.

Daniel Fisher, the CEO of Physical Gold, which sells gold coins and bars, saw it first in November 2020. He called it an 'extraordinary' time, in which his turnover jumped 2,000% compared to November 2019....

Coins and 5g bars were of particular interest to customers who called Physical Gold last November to make their purchases. "These were people talking about how they worried about inflation, given how much money the government was printing for furlough programs during the pandemic," Fisher said.

'Some people wanted to pass down money to their kids or grandkids in a way that it didn't lose its value over time, or they wanted them to learn the value of investment.' One man, Fisher recalled, spent a long time discussing how he could best shrink his inheritance tax by gifting his grandchildren gold. 'The conversation landed on coins, because those are also free of capital gains tax,' Fisher said. 'He ended up gifting his grandkids 30 or 40 coins apiece.'

People weren't buying these coins last year because they couldn't purchase other gifts-because supply chain snafus had delayed PlayStation deliveries or rendered Razor scooters out of stock....

North American gold retailers have been having a bumper pandemic. Last November and December, the Canadian firm Kitco Metals saw a 50% spike in sales compared to the same period in 2019 and 2018. Stefan Gleason, the president of Money Metals Exchange, a US dealer in precious metals, saw demand for gold double from Nov. 2019 to Nov. 2020 - and double again from Nov. 2020 to Nov. 2021.

'People who buy gold as gifts probably would not spend more than $1,000 per purchase, and I think I'm being generous with that,' said Bart Kitner, the president of Kitco. 'Investors, on the other hand, will easily buy bars and coins for anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 at a time. Approximately 5-10% of gold investors will spend upwards of $500,000 on bullion'."