A week ago, when we reported that in a stunning move, the "Dutch Central Bank Secretly Withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold From The New York Fed", and when looking at the NY Fed's monthly reports of gold deposits by foreign entities, we observed that "we can see that while the 5 tons outflow in 2013 was most likely Germany, the recent surge in gold repatriation from Liberty 33 was the Netherlands. That said, only 77.5 tons of NY deposits gold has been officially repatriated through September, which means the October update, when it comes out, will be a doozy." Yesterday, the long anticipated October update of "earmarked gold" held on deposit at the NY Fed was released, and sure enough it did not disappoint. Declining in dollar value from $8.305 billion to $8.248 billion, this was the equivalent of 42 tonnes of gold being withdrawn, in the process reducing net gold located in the vault of JPMorgan the NY Fed to 6,076 tonnes. The 42 tonnes withdrawal was also the biggest single monthly redemption from the NY Fed since 2001.



So with the 119 tonnes of gold withdrawn so far in 2014, it is now abundantly clear that the "logistical complications" excuse used by Germany to halt its own gold repatriation program was nothing but a lie to cover up what, as Deutsche Bank explained earlier this month, was an escalation of "diplomatic difficulties" between the US and Germany, one in which Germany has folded, if only for now.

Do you have a good source for this? Some newspapers are reporting the Dutch withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold and others that they have only made the request.

A number of blogs and Russian newspapers have confirmed the Dutch withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold but I did not find any major western journal stating this?

I am not saying you are wrong but just looking for a more traditional source!

Would be this, then, I presume:
http://www.dnb.nl/en/news/news-and-a.../dnb315314.jsp

Thank god they provide an English version of their website.
;-)

After a lot of searching I found the link here to the NY FED report on NY "earmarked" reserves of gold which does show a big drop in the last two months.

Not so hard to find: here's a link to the Dutch National Bank's statement on the DNB's own website: http://www.dnb.nl/en/news/news-and-a.../dnb315314.jsp


By the way, do you know that Marie Le Pen of France's National Front has subsequently requested France's Central Bank to repatriate its gold too?:

http://www.frontnational.com/2014/11...ance%E2%80%8F/

I'm quite surprised, as De Gaulle in the late sixties (1967?) had the french gold that was in Fort Knox withdrawn and transported to France, a few years before Bretton Woods fell apart, and I would have thought most would still be in France.

Of course a nice chunk should be expected to be in London as some gold will need to be ready for easy transfer in order to use for lending, but that shouldn't be that much (like, similar to the 20% of the swiss gold).

In the US gold dollar price has become even more volatile. As of this moment the difference low to high price today is approx. $60.
I wonder if that is caused by the extreme negative GOFO rates?

fantastic buying opportunity this morning after the vote, with many black friday specials still in place at bullion dealers. both gold and silver recovering earning a nice profit, who says you shouldn't be buying gold?

I do not know; gold price long ago stopped following any sort of logic!

Certainly gold opened low today; possibly reacting to the Swiss vote?

None of the recent price changes seem to be driven by the guys who meet midday in the oak panelled boardroom in London; maybe just my foolish perception

Also as mentioned before the Indian Govt. cancelled their import restrictions on Friday which should have been positive for the price!

Well, I think even the most ardent of shorts will be troubled by this rally and the ferocity of today's rebound. If naked they will be scrambling to cover their exposure.

Yesterday, when we commented on what was largely a pre-determined outcome of the Swiss gold referendum, we said that there still "is the question of what happens to the tension in the gold swap market: as noted last week, the 1 Month GOFO rate had tumbled to the most negative in over a decade. It was not clear if this collateral gold squeeze was the result of Swiss referendum overhang or due to other reasons. The market's reaction on Monday should answer those questions."

Well, a few hours ago we got the GOFO update for the "day after" and the answer is clear: it wasn't fear of the Swiss referendum after all because the 1 Month GOFO just crashed even deeper into negative territory with the entire curve through 6M now red, and with 12 month GOFO just 0.6 bps away from negative for the first time. At this rate, tomorrow's update will suggest that big institutions expect the gold swap shortage to persist through the end of 2015!

Also, judging by the gold reaction, which is about $50 from the overnight lows, someone else appears to have noticed that the rather shocking shortage of synthetic gold among institutions, which is finally seeping through into that whole "price discovery" process, where supply and demand actually matter.



Bottom line: whatever caused the record scramble for rehypothecated gold, it wasn't fears about the outcome of the Swiss referendum. Something else spooked the precious metal a month ago, and as seen on the chart above, things have only gotten progressively worse since then.

If you copy stuff from zerohedge or elsewhere please add the source as well.

Interesting argument here about GOFO; quite technical and not sure yet how much I agree with it - need to think more about it.

It seems Mr. Fatmanfilms is unwilling or unable to provide a cogent argument in support of his asserted opinion concerning gold's allegedly not qualifying as a store of wealth/value. He asks "what is so difficult to understand?" but has explained nothing of substance to corroborate his antagonistic anti-gold opinion.

For readers interested in something beyond fact-free opinions on the topic of gold as a store of wealth/value, I submit the following...

Self-described Financial Dictionary's definition:

Store of Value

Anything with value that may be stored and retrieved at a later date with the expectation that it will still have value. The most common store of value is money, which generally will still be money after being buried underground for some number of years. Other stores of value include real estate, securities and precious metals.

Such definitions are apparently anathema to Mr. Fatmanfilms, who prefers to unilaterally equate store of wealth/value with investment — the real-world difference being that an investment is invariably expected to return an increase in value, whereas a store of wealth/value is only expected to return tangible value (i.e., not necessarily an increase).

Mr. Fatmanfilms, on the other hand, sees fit to snipe and troll this thread with his routine (but unsubstantiated) assertion that buying gold is "like catching a falling knife, not recommended" — yet he apparently can't cite facts to legitimatize his asserted opinion.

On the other hand, this article concludes that gold's performance as a store of wealth/value over the past 60 years has been anything but negative — as illustrated in this chart, which posits proximate average yearly changes among a variety of store-of-wealth/value candidates:



A cogent basis for considering Mr. Fatmanfilm's alleged "falling knife" scenario has yet to materialize. Meanwhile, I think it's safe to assume that most buyers/owners of physical gold as a store of wealth/value have little to fear in terms of Mr. Fatmanfilms' unilateral and unsubstantiated assertions.

__________________
"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant

Gold seems to be touching $1,200 again while Brent crude looks to be closing around $66.

Strange world

Some brave or foolhardy souls aiut there "According to data from CME Group, the US derivatives marketplace, options have been taken out to sell 880,000 barrels of US crude at $40 for December 2015. The number of these options has quadrupled in the past fortnight."

Surprised too, never expected or anticipated the current trend.

Apparently you boys never watch the news.

But that shows that stocks and property outperformed gold by a large margin!

US sinks oil prices, then Russia bulks up on gold. US running out of margin to frack, and Russian ruble falling. So this should normalize after a while, unless others continue to play their gambits.

Can't this whole thing crash when rocking the boat like that?

Apparently either you haven't been paying attention or you don't understand the difference between an investment and a store of value/wealth, any more than Fatmanfilms — even after it's been explained more than once in this thread.

The point is not what "outperforms" what (i.e., what makes a better investment), but what has held value/wealth. And metals have held value/wealth quite adequately in the long term, which is all is expected by those who use them as a store of value/wealth. They're not wringing their hands because they were "outperformed" by something else, they're content to have value/wealth safely stored somewhere (in their case, metal).

Contrast that with Fatmanfilms' arbitrary and uncorroborated claim that "Gold is not a store of wealth ... it never has been," and it's readily apparent that he's talking through his hat.

EDIT: PS - the Dow Jones' 6.9 annual average vs. Gold's (6.3) (i.e., less than 10%) is hardly a particularly 'large margin' from where I sit. (But what do I know? — I'm not an experienced investor.)

__________________
"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant