A few days ago, I reported on the state of the gold trade today and how investors had dumped gold as an investment the weeks following the US presidential election as it became apparent that Donald Trump might be positive for stocks, but the story for physical gold is different.

HSBC reported at the end of last week that exchange traded funds tracked by the bank’s commodities analysts reported a decline in gold holdings of 3.9 million ounces during November, the highest monthly outflow since May 2013. The gold price fell by 7% in November 2016, compared to a 5% drop in May 2013. The  gold SPDR, the largest gold ETF globally (GLD), shed 1.9 million ounces of gold during November, contributing close to half of the total ETF outflows for the period. However, despite these outflows, the bank noted that ETF buying for the year to the date publication on a net basis was 20.3 million ounces, the largest annual ETF gain since 2010.

Since HSBC’s report was published, new data has emerged detailing the scale of investors’ flight away from the yellow metal. According to ETF trading data, since Hillary Clinton ceded the White House to Donald Trump, investors have slashed gold holdings by 11% exacerbating the decline in gold prices and if this trend continues by the end of February investors will have been sellers on a net basis over the previous 12 months. ETF holdings of gold have now dropped for 28 days straight, the longest run since 2004.

But as investors have been selling their exposure to gold, physical buyers in China and India have continued to bid up physical metal. Premiums for physical gold within China and India are near record highs, and figures from the Shanghai Gold Exchange (used as an indication of trends in physical demand for gold) showed that trade volumes of the physical metal more than doubled month-on-month during November after Donald Trump’s win of the US elections. Monthly trading hit 1.5kt surpassing the previous record of 1.2kt printed after the Brexit vote.

Perhaps Asian investors have been reading Bank of America’s research on real assets and their current discount to financial assets such as equities and bonds. Specifically, according to Bank of America Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett, the current valuation of financial assets relative to real assets is at its lowest level since 1926, offering a once in lifetime opportunity for physical asset investors. Real assets are generally defined as tangible assets with intrinsic value, typically far less liquid than financial assets.