physical gold purchases may have bolstered gold prices gains in in january according to the world gold council wgc the organisation said that bullion prices gained 61 in january to end the month at 1924 per ounce it said that the falling us dollar was a “a significant contributor” to january’s rise with “a drop in us treasury yields” giving values an extra boost the us dollar index an instrument that weighs the strength of the north american currency against a basket of other currencies fell to its cheapest since last spring in january traders sold the greenback as news of sinking inflation raised speculation of lesssevere rate hikes from the federal reserve a weaker buck makes it cheaper to buy bullion in other currencies thus boosting overall gold demand the wgc commented that strong buying interest from central banks could also be responsible for gold’s strong start to the new year it said that “we can’t rule out the impact of capturing central bank buying or expectations thereof which following a colossal 2022 may be continuing into 2023” the people’s bank of china added an extra 15 tonnes of the precious metal to its reserves in january the organisation noted central banks bought a record 1136 tonnes of the yellow metal last year according to earlier wgc data it said that institutions bulked up their holdings due to geopolitical uncertainty and high inflation 2023 market the thirteenth successive year of net purchases and the largest level of annual demand since 1950 however the wgc noted that holdings in global exchangetraded funds etfs experienced a 262tonne outflow in january total holdings in these funds stood at 34462 tonnes at the end of january the council said that this was driven primarily by liquidations in europe where outflows totalled 33 tonnes it speculated that the level of selling was “potentially impacted by the area’s rising interest rates appreciating currencies and strengthening local equities holdings in asian etfs dropped 4 tonnes last month it said due to outflows in china but funds in north america enjoyed their second consecutive month of inflows up 9 tonnes while inflows elsewhere totalled 17 tonnes despite these physical outflows global etfs rose 5 in value thanks to the rising price of gold total holdings were valued at 2134 billion as of 31 january