"Bank moves spur gold rush"

Michael Lewis, commodities strategist at Deutsche Bank, notes that the majority of central banks banks in the developing world have less than 10 per cent of their reserves in gold.

Mr Lewis combines this list with major holders of US Treasuries who have a strong incentive to diversify into gold given the "non-negligible risk of a US debt and currency crisis".

China, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, India, Singapore, Brazil and Korea are strong potential candidates to increase their bullion holdings, he says. "We expect central banks, in aggregate, to be net buyers of gold over the coming year for the first time since 1998."