Fears of a banking crisis and U.S. dollar collapse have sent the gold demand soaring, leaving dealers and exchange officials struggling to catch up.

With loose monetary policies set to continue for the foreseeable future, the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world have been slowly losing credibility. The situation has sparked a rush for physical gold and silver, leading to shortages and long delays for delivery.

The situation has sparked a “bank run” of sorts at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (COMEX), the American center for commodity trading. Most of the gold investors’ ownership isn’t actually physical metal at all. Instead, most of the world’s gold supplies are “paper,” representing a promise to deliver actual gold at a specified time and place at some point in the future… Read Full Article