Gold bulls lose key ally as diehard coin buyers disappear in US

New York

FINDING bullish gold investors is getting a lot harder, even in a place where demand has been almost a given in recent years: precious-metal coins.

Customers who were buying even as gold began slumping in 2013 are now so scarce at the Bullion Trading shop in New York that owner Isaac Kahan says sales in May tumbled 35 per cent. Purchases of American Eagle gold coins from the US Mint, the world's largest, were the weakest for the month in eight years. And global coin demand this year probably will slump to the lowest since 2008, TD Securities predicts.