Record high gold prices have hammered sales of the precious metal in Abu Dhabi in November, the Gulf Arab emirate's Gold and Jewellery Group chief said on Saturday. The 60 percent plunge in volume in November appeared to indicate that December sales would also be badly hit, Tushar Patni told Reuters.
"The market is stagnant, and we are expecting December to be a very bad month for gold sales. There is no optimism down here," Patni said. Gold hit a 28-year high of $845.40 an ounce in November. "Because prices were just too high for everyone in the market, we saw a 60 percent drop in sales volume and almost 40 percent drop in sales value last month," he said in a telephone interview. "The buyers we had in the market were those who were exchanging old gold for new pieces."