From the front page of today's Financial Times: "Investors today are demanding "unprecedented" amount of actual bullion bars and coins and moving them into their own vaults as fears about the global financial system deepen."

Industry executives and bankers at the London Bullion Market Association annual meeting said the extent of the move into physical gold was unforeseen and driven by the very rich.

"There's been an enormous pick-up in investment demand. I have never seen a market like this in my 33-year career," said Jeremy Charles, chairman of the LBMA, the gold refineries cannot produce enough bars."

The move comes as fear grows among investors over the losses of investment vehicles previously considered almost risk-free such as money funds. Philip Garner, associate director of precious metals at HSCM added that investors were not flying into gold simply because they saw it as a haven amid Wall Street's woes, "It is a flight into gold because it is a physical asset."