Purchase limits have tightened on Costco gold bars as popularity boomed
Purchase limits have tightened on Costco gold bars as popularity boomed
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What's really going on with gold prices?
Gold recently reached a record high as geopolitical tensions pushed investors towards the traditional safe play. Merryn Somerset Webb explains what's going on - and where things could go from here.
Bloomberg - Politics
Gold has become such a hot commodity that Costco is apparently limiting how much its members can buy.
The warehouse retailer began selling 24-karat gold bars to its members in 2023, with a limit of two bars per person. Now, that limit has changed to one per transaction and a maximum of two bars per 24 hours, when you look on the retailer website.
The price tag for a 1-ounce South African-made gold bar? $3,279.99, much higher than the $2,000 they were going for 19 months ago, shortly after Costco began selling them. However, that price increase is understandable as gold prices have risen more than 70% over that time – hitting record highs in April.
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Another listing, for the 1-ounce Gold Bar PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan, limits members to one item per transaction and a maximum of two items per 24 hours, down from a limit of five items per 24 hours in January. The same product had a cap of two purchases per membership in September 2023, according to an archived snapshot of the listing.
The retailer also has limits on other precious metals including:
1-ounce American Eagle gold coin ($3,329.99; one per transaction and two per 24 hours)
10-ounce silver bar ($359.99; one per transaction and 10 per 24 hours)
One option without a limit is the smaller 5-gram gold bar on an 18-karat gold chain, priced at $1,149.99.
Costco did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
Costco: Consumers still snapping up gold bars
The gold bars constantly sold out when they were first available online in 2023. "When we load them on the site, they're typically gone within a few hours, and we limit two per member,' Costco's then-chief financial officer Richard Galanti told analysts during the company's earnings call in September 2023, according to a transcript from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Sales of gold and other categories including jewelry were up double digits in the 24-week period ending Feb. 16, chief financial officer Gary Millerchip said. The retailer also began selling silver Canadian coins in March 2024.
Costco could be making $100 million to $200 million a month by selling gold bars, Wells Fargo Equity Research estimated in April 2024.
If gold prices remain high – prices rose more than 1% on Thursday, May 15 – and economic uncertainty continues, the bars could remain popular purchases.
"You know things are getting weird when your mom starts eyeing gold bars at Costco like it's toilet paper in 2020," one social media user quipped.
Contributing: Fernando Cervantes Jr., Mary Walrath-Holdridge and Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY.
Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com
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