The supply shortages in the gold market will likely ease in the coming weeks as Swiss refineries start running again.
Three major plants in the Swiss canton of Ticino, Europe’s biggest gold-refining hub, have said they’ve received permission from local authorities to run their factories at a limited rate. The plants were shut for almost two weeks because of the coronavirus outbreak, which cut off a key source of bullion supply and made it harder for some investors to find gold bars. The difficulty of running gold factories and finding flights to ship them to New York and London has rattled the market at a time when investors are desperate to buy gold as a safe-haven asset.