Chinese Shoppers Rush to Buy Gold as Prices Slide Toward 800 Yuan a Gram
Gold's slide from this year's records has emptied display cases from Xi'an to Shenzhen's Shuibei market, while buyers who bought at January's peak — nearly 1,200 yuan a gram — are sitting on losses of up to 60,000 yuan.
Three sisters walked into a gold shop in Xi'an this week, the owner told a local broadcaster, and each walked out with a large gold bracelet. A young man followed and bought a 100-gram necklace on the spot. Compared with two months ago, the owner said, "gold really is cheaper now," and the buyers can tell: business has doubled in the week since prices began sliding, with plain bangles moving fastest and the grandest styles going first.
The domestic bullion price has settled around 865 yuan a gram, and retail counters in Wuhan quoted 873 — the lowest in a month. In Shenzhen's Shuibei district, the country's wholesale jewellery bazaar, the dip emptied the shelves: one report said 5-gram, 10-gram and 200-gram investment bars had all sold out, and bracelets were being restocked three times a day. A manager in Wuhan said sales had quadrupled in three days, with one customer taking more than 240 grams at a sitting.
Last week's slide below $4,000 an ounce — the first time under that mark since July — set off the rush, and jewellers cut counter prices overnight. But the same week produced the other ledger. A consumer in Chongqing who bought a 42-gram bracelet in January at 1,198.5 yuan a gram is more than 13,800 yuan underwater on paper, and has still not worn it. An investor who bought 200 grams of bars early this year and needed to sell this week, with prices in the 800s, lost more than 60,000 yuan once fees were counted.
Chinese households have long treated gold as both ornament and insurance: wedding sets for brides, long-life locks for newborns and, increasingly, small "treat yourself" pieces for young professionals. The counters reflect the split mood. Staff at a brand store in Beijing said shoppers had turned deliberately cautious — one customer traded a planned solid bangle for a small gold "peace buckle" charm instead, weighing decoration against the risk of paying for grams she did not need. Younger buyers, several shops reported, now favour light, design-led pendants and braided gold over the heavy bangles their mothers saved for; wedding demand, stall owners in Shuibei said, has not budged.
Whether the low 800s is a floor or a waypoint is the question the counters cannot answer, and the two moods now share the same queue: those buying the dip, and those calculating whether to sell into it. The Chongqing bracelet, meanwhile, has still not been worn.