Ronan Manly

Venezuela’s Gold Reserves – Part 1

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• Ronan Manly
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Venezuela’s gold reserves have rarely stayed out of the financial news headlines over the last four years. From initial gold repatriation announcements in August 2011, through to gold shipments from Europe to Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, in late 2011 and early 2012, as well as the more recent negotiations on using gold in swaps and for … Continue Reading

El Salvador’s Gold Reserves, the BIS, and the Bullion Banks

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• Ronan Manly
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According to a Reuters report from 24 April, the central bank of El Salvador, Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador (BCR), sold approximately 80% of its gold reserves during March 2015. This sale comprised 5.412 tons of gold and raised $206 million for the Bank. Reuters initiated its story based on updates to the … Continue Reading

The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 3

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• Ronan Manly
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is authorized to use its gold holdings to engage in gold location swaps and has done so frequently in the past. This has involved gold location swaps with the entities who maintain the gold vaults where the IMF stores its gold, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, … Continue Reading

London Gold Fixing Website Taken Offline

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• Ronan Manly
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(Update 23/03/2015: The www.goldfixing.com website was permanently switched off in the early morning of Monday 23rd March 2015) The last ever ‘Gold Fixing’ will take place on the afternoon of Thursday 19th March 2015 at 3.00pm. Following the last fixing, the www.goldfixing.com website of the London Gold Market Fixing Limited will be immediately and permanently … Continue Reading

Will Chinese Banks Participate in the New LBMA Auctions?

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• Ronan Manly
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There is a growing assumption in the financial media that a number of Chinese banks will be joining the new LBMA Gold Price auction as direct participants when the auction launches in London on Friday 20th March. This assumption is based on various sources, but primarily on a number of general comments made by the … Continue Reading

The Bank of England and the London Gold Fixings in the 1980s

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• Ronan Manly
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With the current structure of the London gold price fixings disappearing in the very near future, there is an unusual story that I’d like to share about the gold fixings. It concerns the Bank of England’s ‘gold activities’ in the daily London Gold Fixings during the 1980s, and my attempts to get the Bank to explain … Continue Reading

Spotlight on Greece’s Gold Reserves and Grexit

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• Ronan Manly
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With the Greek Government and the Troika back in the news right now, it’s a good time to take a look at Greece’s official gold reserves and examine how much gold Greece claims to hold, where this gold might be located, and explore the impact that the European bailouts or a Greek Euro exit might have … Continue Reading

The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 2, Nagpur and Shanghai

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• Ronan Manly
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Part 1 of the IMF’s Gold Depositories series explained the legal background as to why the IMF originally made the decision to hold gold at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, the Banque de France and the Reserve Bank of India. See Part 1 for details, but as a quick … Continue Reading

The Keys to the Gold Vaults at the New York Fed – Part 3

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• Ronan Manly
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Part 1 of this series reviewed Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) publications that cover the Fed’s gold storage vaults in Manhattan, and illustrated how the information in these publications has been watered down over time. Part 1 also showed that the number of foreign central bank customers storing gold with the FRBNY has fallen substantially since the late … Continue Reading

The IMF’s Gold Depositories – Part 1, The Legal Background

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• Ronan Manly
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the world’s third largest official sector holder of gold behind the United States and Germany. According to the Fund’s web site, as at October 2014 “the IMF holds around 90.5 million ounces (2,814.1 metric tons) of gold at designated depositories." The IMF’s gold holdings were accumulated between 1946 and … Continue Reading

The Keys to the Gold Vaults at the New York Fed – Part 2

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• Ronan Manly
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The FRBNY’s Auxiliary Vault As mentioned in Part 1 of Keys to the Gold Vaults at the New York Fed, there are two gold vaults at the New York Fed, the main vault and the auxiliary vault. Very little is written anywhere about the FRBNY’s auxiliary vault, or the ‘aux vault’ as it has sometimes been … Continue Reading

The Keys to the Gold Vaults at the New York Fed – Part 1

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• Ronan Manly
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Over time, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has become increasingly less transparent in sharing information about its Manhattan gold vaults. I use gold vaults in the plural because there are two gold vaults at the New York Fed’s headquarters, namely, the main vault and the auxiliary vault. During the 1970s, New York … Continue Reading