Tag: paper gold

Relative Scarcity of Physical Gold Prompts Large Drawdowns From Funds and ETFs

Guest Post by Jesse

“It appears that there is a dwindling and overleveraged supply heading towards an unmanageable and relentless source of demand.”

It is interesting to watch the ongoing management of physical gold holdings in the West.

Physical gold has been seeing large drawdowns from inventory during this price decline, but silver does not.

This is not due to some preference or matter of taste.   Physical gold for sale at these prices is in short supply, whereas silver is not.

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Why Did the LBMA Apparently Alter Its Gold Refining Flow Statistics Lower by 2,200 Tonnes for 2013?

Guest Post by Jesse

Ronan Manly has published a fascinating analysis of the LBMA gold refining statistic today.

The gold refined by LBMA ‘good delivery’ refiners in Switzerland is sometimes involved in converting existing gold bars into kilobars suitable for export to the Asian Markets.

Ronan Manly offers quite a bit of detail with regard to a very large revision in the LBMA 2013 refining data and suggests that such a large restatement of gold statistics, almost 1/3, without explanation, seems odd.

The supposition is that the LBMA originally counted gold bars that were taken from existing sources, such as their own stores, ETFs, and the Bank of England and re-refined into kilobars for delivery into Asia.   They later restated the number lower by 2,200 tonnes.   We have not been given the exact reason for this, but one suggestion is that the gold did not come from new mining or traditional recycling.

Depending on how the GFMS and the WGC uses the statistics and sources, this could result in a significant (~2,200 tonnes) understatement of the flow of gold from Western sources into Asia in just one year.

What is the LBMA policy decision here, and what about subsequent years of 2014 and 2015?

What is the source of this gold?  And what is so special about 2013?

Continue reading “Why Did the LBMA Apparently Alter Its Gold Refining Flow Statistics Lower by 2,200 Tonnes for 2013?”

Shanghai Gold Exchange Sees 61.8 Tonnes Withdrawn In Eighth Largest Week Ever – Talk To the Hand

Guest Post by Jesse

“Gold has worked down from Alexander’s time. When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory.”

Bernard M. Baruch

Asia continues to add significant amounts of gold bullion to their wealth reserves.

Wall Street and its sycophants would like us to consider gold to be just ‘a pet rock’ or ‘like trading sardines.’   And yet central banks have turned to be net buyers, and Asia and the Mideast continue to buy bullion in record amounts.   Talk to the Chan.

One of the few coherent things Alan Greenspan said was that statists of all persuasions, both right and left, have ‘an almost hysterical antagonism towards gold.’ This is because gold resists their will to power over others.

So why isn’t gold ‘working’ at this moment in history?

Continue reading “Shanghai Gold Exchange Sees 61.8 Tonnes Withdrawn In Eighth Largest Week Ever – Talk To the Hand”