Our government leaders, central bankers, and MSM keep telling us everything is great. They tell us to ignore the massive money printing going on around the globe by central bankers. They assure us that inflation is well contained. They tell us they know what they are doing and everything is under control. Bernanke and Buffett tell Ron Paul that gold is barborous relic. They tell him that gold is not money. The MSM tells us that the gold bubble will pop. Then why are Central Banks buying up gold like their is no tomorrow? Could it be because they know there will be no tomorrow? Are they preparing for the great reset when they pull the plug on the existing fiat currency system? Do you think they will tell the ignorant masses the real reason for their gold purchases? It’s time for some critical thinking. Look what’s happening.
2012 sees gold demand hit record value level
14 Feb, 2013
Q4 2012 up 4% year-on-year as India, China and central banks drive demand
In value terms, gold demand in 2012 was US$236.4bn – an all-time high. Gold demand in value terms for the final quarter of the year was 6% higher year-on-year at US$66.2bn, marking the highest ever Q4 total.
Global gold demand in Q4 2012 was 1,195.9 tonnes(t), up 4% on the same quarter in 2011. In Q4 2012, the average gold price reached a record level of US$1,721.8/oz, up 1% on the previous record average price in Q3 2011. The average price during 2012 was US$1,669.0/oz, up 6% from US$1,571.5/oz in 2011,
The key findings from the report are as follows:
- Whilst Indian full year demand was down 12% on the previous year, the market performed strongly in the final quarter with total demand at 261.9t, an increase of 41% on the same period last year. Both jewellery and investment demand reached their highest levels for six quarters. Demand for jewellery was up 35% year-on-year to reach 153.0t, and strong retail demand led to 108.9t of investment buying. In India the prospect of duty increases, which came in to force in January 2013, may have added to strong buying in the final quarter to beat the anticipated price rises.
- Chinese demand was flat year-on–year, reflecting the impact of economic slowdown. However looking at Q4, total demand was up 1% on the previous quarter to 202.5t. Jewellery demand was137.0t up 1% on Q4 2011 and investment demand was 65.5t, up 2% on the previous year. These increases may reflect the fact that the economic slowdown in China appears to have been shorter than expected.
- Central bank buying for the full year rose by 17% compared to 2011, totalling 534.6t, the highest level since 1964. Central bank purchases stood at 145.0t in Q4, up 29% on the corresponding quarter in the previous year, making this the eighth consecutive quarter in which central banks have been net purchasers of gold.
- Global investment in ETFs in 2012 was up significantly by 51% on the preceding year, though Q4 was down 16% to 88.1t when compared with the high levels recorded in Q3 2012.
Marcus Grubb, Managing Director, Investment at the World Gold Council said:
“China and India remain the world’s gold power houses, and by some distance, despite challenging domestic economic conditions. In India, consumer sentiment towards gold remained strong despite measures aimed at curbing demand, reaffirming gold’s role in Indian society. In an underdeveloped financial system in India, gold has an important role to play.
“Notwithstanding the predicted economic slowdown in China, investment demand was up 24% in Q4 on the previous quarter and jewellery consumption held steady at 137.0t.
“Central banks’ move from net sellers of gold, to net buyers that we have seen in recent years, has continued apace. The official sector purchases across the world are now at their highest level for almost half a century.
“Despite the turbulent macroeconomic climate throughout the year, as well as the regional uncertainties affecting India and China, the two largest gold markets, annual demand was 30% higher than the average for the past decade.”
Gold demand and supply statistics for Q4 and full year 2012:
- Fourth quarter gold demand of 1,195.9t was up 4% compared with Q4 2011 but down 4% on the full year.
- The value measure of gold demand in Q4 2012 was 6% higher year-on-year at US$66.2bn and 2% up over the full year at a record US$236.4bn.
- The Q4 2012 average gold price reached a record level of $1,721.8/oz, up 1% on the previous record average price in Q3 2011.
- Investment demand (the sum of ETFs and total bar and coin demand) was 424.7t, down 8% compared to the same quarter last year, but was 19% above the five year quarterly average. Demand for ETFs and similar products in Q4 was down by 16% on the corresponding quarter in 2011 to 88.1t, but was up by 51% on the full year.
- Demand in the jewellery sector was up 11% to 525.3t compared to 472.4t in the same quarter in 2011. Jewellery demand for the full year 2012 was down 3% on 2011 in tonnage terms.
- Fourth quarter demand for gold in the technology sector was down on Q4 2011 by 3% at 100.9t which is in line with expectations, following moves by manufacturers to substitute gold bonding wire. This was as much a reflection of the inventory cycle, as of weaker demand for electrical items. Technology demand for the full year 2012 was down 5% on 2011 in tonnage terms.
- The Q4 2012 supply of gold from mines was up 2% year-on-year, while recycling was down 5% against the same period. Full year supply in 2012 remained stable against 2011 levels.
- Official sector purchases stood at 145.0t in Q4, up 29% on the corresponding quarter in the previous year, making this the eighth consecutive quarter in which central banks have been net purchasers of gold. Central bank buying for the full year rose by 17% compared to 2011, totalling 534.6t, the highest level since 1964.
DaveL says:
A little OT. I read the latest Mauldin last night. The Fed is bailing out state pension funds either by direct infusion or pumping up the stock market. Who the fuck is going to lose under this scenario? Much more of this, and I won’t have enough money to buy toilet paper to wipe an Obama from my ass.
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14th February 2013 at 10:58 am
AWD says:
They’re buying gold because they will very soon dump the U.S. dollar (and petrodollars) as reserve currency. We will finally get our comeuppance for leaving the gold standard and devaluing our currency ad infinitum.
Then they will demand gold in payment for the trillions in debt we owe them. Germany is repatriating their gold before our criminal banksters and politicians nationalize it. You can manipulate the price of gold, but it’s real, tangible value can never be printed by Bernake or devalued.
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14th February 2013 at 11:08 am
IndenturedServant says:
According to Bernanke, the Fed only has gold as a matter of tradition.
I_S
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14th February 2013 at 12:25 pm
Bob says:
Central Banks sold Gold near the bottom, and are buying it near the top, as they usually do.
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14th February 2013 at 2:56 pm
Administrator says:
I wonder if the debt ceiling will be raised? Correlation or Causation?
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14th February 2013 at 3:05 pm
Ron says:
Theyre you go with facts again.
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14th February 2013 at 4:24 pm
Anonymous says:
Because they’re the biggest crooks ever? Take a look at this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214
“The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks’ profit – but they didn’t extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses.
People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.
For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that “they make the guys on Wall Street look good.” The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.
“They violated every goddamn law in the book,” says Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator who headed a major bribery investigation against Lockheed in the 1970s that led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business.”
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14th February 2013 at 11:52 am