Tag Archive: Uncategorized

The Gold-Backed-Oil-Yuan Futures Contract Myth

2017-10-16

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2017-10-16

Share of Global Payments, Oct 2010 - Jul 2017
On September 1, 2017, the Nikkei Asian Review published an article titled, “China sees new world order with oil benchmark backed by gold”, written by Damon Evans. Just below the headline in the introduction it states, “China is expected shortly to launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold in what analysts say could be a game-changer for the industry”. Not long after the Nikkei piece was released ‘the story’ was...

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The West lost at least another 1000 tonnes of large gold bars in 2015

2017-08-14

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2017-08-14

Kilobars
Over the last number of years, one of the most interesting trends in the physical gold world is the ongoing conversion of large 400 ounce gold bars into smaller high purity 1 kilogram gold bars to meet the insatiable demand of Asian gold markets such as China and India.

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Estimated Chinese Gold Reserves Surpass 20,000t

2017-08-02

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2017-08-02

Shanghai Gold Exchange Vaults, Jan 2009 - June 2017
My best estimate as of June 2017 with respect to total above ground gold reserves within the Chinese domestic market is 20,193 tonnes. The majority of these reserves are held by the citizenry, an estimated 16,193 tonnes; the residual 4,000 tonnes, which is a speculative yet conservative estimate, is held by the Chinese central bank the People’s Bank of China.

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Did The Dutch Central Bank Lie About Its Gold Bar List?

2017-07-25

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2017-07-25

The-Netherlands-Official-Gold-Reserves-Locations
Head of the Financial Markets Division of the Dutch central bank, Aerdt Houben, stated in an interview for newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad published in October 2016 that releasing a bar list of the Dutch official gold reserves “would cost hundreds of thousands of euros”. In this post we’ll expose this is virtually impossible – the costs to publish the bar list should be close to zero – and speculate about the far reaching implications of this...

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New Gold Pool at the BIS Basle: Part 2 – Pool vs Gold for Oil

2017-05-26

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2017-05-26

Gold Price, Spetember 1979 - April 1980
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. The series focuses on collusive discussions and meetings that took place between the world’s most powerful central bankers in late 1979 and 1980 in an attempt to launch a central bank Gold Pool cartel to manipulate and control the free market price of gold. The meetings centered around the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland.

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New Gold Pool at the BIS Basle, Switzerland: Part 1

2017-05-21

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2017-05-21

“In the Governor’s absence I attended the meeting in Zijlstra’s room in the BIS on the afternoon of Monday, 10th December to continue discussions about a possible gold pool. Emminger, de la Geniere, de Strycker, Leutwiler, Larre and Pohl were present.”  

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An update on SGE Vault Withdrawals and SGE Price Premiums

2017-05-20

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2017-05-20

SGE Gold Withdrawals, 2008 - May 2017
In 2016, withdrawals of gold from the Shanghai Gold Exchange totalled 1970 tonnes, the 4th highest annual total on record. This was 24% less than SGE gold withdrawals recorded in 2015, which reached a cumulative 2596 tonnes (See Koos Jansen’s 6 January 2017 blog at BullionStar “How The West Has Been Selling Gold Into A Black Hole” for more details of the 2016 withdrawals).

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Bank of England releases new data on its gold vault holdings

2017-05-04

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2017-05-04

An article in February on BullionStar’s website titled “A Chink of Light into London’s Gold Vaults?” discussed an upcoming development in the London Gold Market, namely that both the Bank of England (BoE) and the commercial gold vault providers in London planned to begin publishing regular data on the quantity of physical gold actually stored in their gold vaults.

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Death Spiral for the LBMA Gold and Silver auctions?

2017-04-17

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2017-04-17

In a bizarre series of events that have had limited coverage but which are sure to have far-reaching consequences for benchmark pricing in the precious metals markets, the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price auctions both experienced embarrassing trading glitches over consecutive trading days on Monday 10 April and Tuesday 11 April. At the outset, its worth remembering that both of these London-based benchmarks are Regulated Benchmarks, regulated...

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German and Swiss Precious Metals Refiners join forces as Heraeus acquires Argor-Heraeus

2017-04-04

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2017-04-04

Singapore Germany Silver Bullionstar Bar 1kg
German precious metals group Heraeus Precious Metals (HPM), part of the Heraeus industrial group, has just announced the full acquisition of Swiss precious metals refining group Argor-Heraeus. Heraeus is headquartered in Hanau, just outside Frankfurt. Argor-Heraeus is headquartered in Mendrisio in the Swiss Canton of Ticino, beside the Italian border.

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Germany’s Gold remains a Mystery as Mainstream Media cheer leads

2017-03-06

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2017-03-06

On 9 February 2017, the Deutsche Bundesbank issued an update on its extremely long-drawn-out gold repatriation program, an update in which it claimed to have transferred 111 tonnes of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to Germany during 2016, while also transferring an additional 105 tonnes of gold from the Banque de France in Paris to Germany during the same time-period.

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US Mint Releases New Fort Knox “Audit Documentation” The First Critical Observations.

2017-02-27

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2017-02-27

US official gold reserves
In response to a FOIA request the US Mint has finally released reports drafted from 1993 through 2008 related to the physical audits of the US official gold reserves. However, the documents released are incomplete and reveal the audit procedures have not been executed proficiently. Moreover, because the Mint could not honor its promises in full the costs ($3,144.96 US dollars) of the FOIA request have been refunded.

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Who Owns the Public Gold: States or Central Banks?

2017-02-04

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2017-02-04

It’s a common misconception that the world’s major central banks and monetary authorities own large quantities of gold bars. Most of them do not. Instead, this gold is owned by the sovereign states that have entrusted it to the respective nation’s central bank, and the central banks are merely acting as guardians of the gold. Tracing the ownership question a step further, what are sovereign states?

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How The West Has Been Selling Gold Into A Black Hole

2017-01-21

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2017-01-21

Monthly Gold Withdrawn From Shanghai Gold Exchange Vaults vs Gold Price
In December 2016 Chinese wholesale gold demand, measured by withdrawals from the vaults of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), accounted for 196 tonnes, down 9 % from November. December was still a strong month for SGE withdrawals due to the fact the gold price trended lower before briefly spiking at the end of the month, and the Chinese prefer to buy gold when the price declines (see exhibit 1).

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