Costco's Slim Markups Turned 1-Ounce Bars Into Instant Deals — And Sparked A $30,000 Shopping Spree For One Nervous Investor - Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST), SPDR Gold Trust (ARCA:GLD)

Gold's sprint above $3,500 an ounce this week turned Costco's COST bullion aisle into a treasure hunt, with some members using credit-card perks to all but mint money out of metal.

What Happened: One first-time collector told Business Insider he has poured more than $30,000 into bars and coins since January, all bought at Costco.

"Costco was the gateway drug to gold investing," he said, admitting the speed of the rally now unnerves veteran stackers. "To me, it is the measuring stick for how bad things are going to get."

Costco lists 100-gram and 1-ounce bars online and in select warehouses. On Tuesday, the markup was so slim that Executive members paying with the Costco Citi card effectively earned 1%-2% cash back, a quirk that briefly made bullion cheaper than paper money.

The club chain keeps no-return rules on precious metals and adjusts prices only once or twice a day, unlike live-priced bullion sites. A Reddit user noted, "Their pricing lags up to a day or two behind spot… which was great for customers buying when gold skyrocketed."

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Costco never says how much gold it moves, but executives have called bullion a key e-commerce growth engine, with inventory batches selling out "within a few hours." A warehouse manager, who asked not to be named, told BI that his store gets 10-20 bars at a time, and they're gone in days. "The price hasn't had much of an effect. The people who want it buy it," he added.

What To Know: Gold has dazzled in 2025, leaping more than 25% year-to-date and briefly eclipsing $3,500 an ounce earlier this week, as investors flock to a safe haven amid Fed-independence worries, tariff threats, and recession chatter. Yet FXTM analyst Lukman Otunuga says the metal now looks "heavily overbought," warning that technical signals point to a cooling phase. He sees a pullback toward $3,350, $3,200 or even $3,140 unless bulls can secure a daily close above $3,500 and target the next milestone at $3,600.

The surge has lifted the SPDR Gold Trust GLD in lockstep, but a dip in bullion could hit gold-mining shares harder because of their operating leverage. Even a hawkish Federal Reserve and a resilient dollar haven't dulled bullion's allure, showing how nervous traders remain. For now, investors riding GLD's momentum may want to watch for that correction cue before assuming the rally still has room to run.

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