Baring Asset Management, one of the UK's top "multi-asset" fund managers with funds worth £7bn, held so much gold during the period of the financial crisis that its stock of the metal surpassed the central banks of the Czech Republic, Cyprus or Bangladesh – and the firm may yet put the bet back on.

A number of fund managers have begun establishing positions in the precious metal lately, as signs mount that the global economy is facing a troubled second half of 2012. On Wednesday the US Federal Reserve indicated that it was leaning toward another round of monetary stimulus, also called quantitative easing.