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Ronan Manly is a precious metals analyst with BullionStar whose blogs
often cover current themes including what's going on in the
London gold market and the gold activities of central banks.
Ronan Manly
2 Comments
Just over a year ago, gold researchers Nick Laird, Bron Suchecki, Koos Jansen and myself took a shot at estimating how much physical gold was accounted for in London within the gold-backed ETFs and under Bank of England custody. The results of that exercise are highlighted in September 2015 articles “How many Good Delivery gold bars are in … Continue Reading 
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
In a recent article titled “Blood Brothers: The Bank of England and the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)“, I charted the extremely close historical and contemporary relationship between the LBMA and the Bank of England. This article highlighted that: the LBMA was established in 1987 by the Bank of England the original bullion bank founding members … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is a London-based, globally active, trade association for “the promotion and regulation of commerce relating to the London Bullion Market”. The “London Bullion Market” here collectively refers to the London Gold Market and the London Silver Market. The remit of the LBMA has very recently also been extended to … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Italy’s gold has had an eventful history. Robbed by the Nazis and taken to Berlin. Loaded on to gold trains and sent to Switzerland. Flown from London to Milan and Rome. Used as super-sized collateral for gold backed loans from West Germany while sitting quietly in a vault in New York. Leveraged as a springboard … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
Written by Allan Flynn, specialist researcher in aspects of gold and silver. Five months have lapsed without decision, since London gold and silver benchmark-rigging class action lawsuits received a cool response in a Manhattan court. Transcripts from April hearings show, in the absence of direct evidence, the claims dissected by a “very skeptical” judge, and criticized … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 11 Comments
China is now in pole position as regards annual global gold mining output. Much if not all of Chinese domestic gold mining output is refined into standard gold by Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) approved refiners and then sold through the SGE. A lot of recycled gold in China also flows through the same refineries. As of … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Welcome to the twilight zone of IMF gold sales, where transparency really means secrecy, where on-market is off-market, and where IMF gold sales documents remain indefinitely “classified" and out of public view due to the “sensitivity of the subject matter". Off and On Market Between October 2009 and December 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claims to … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Anyone with even a passing interest in US official gold reserves will probably recall that the US Treasury claims to hold its gold (8,133.5 tonnes) over four locations in continental United States, namely at three US Mint facilities in Fort Knox (Kentucky), West Point (upstate New York), Denver (Colorado), and at the New York Fed … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 3 Comments
Today the London Metal Exchange (LME) and the World Gold Council (WGC) jointly announced (here and here) the launch next year of standardised gold and silver spot and futures contracts which will trade on the LME’s electronic platform LMESelect, will clear on the LME central clearing platform LME Clear, and that will be settled ‘loco London’. Together these … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
In a July 11 BullionStar article, “SPDR Gold Trust gold bars at the Bank of England vaults”, I highlighted that the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), in it’s Q1 2016 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), disclosed that during the January – March 2016 quarter, the GLD custodian HSBC had employed the Bank of England as … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
Earlier this year, the director of marketing and sales at the Austrian Mint confirmed to Bloomberg in an interview that the Mint’s combined gold bar and gold coin sales in 2015 had totalled 1.32 million troy ounces, a 45% increase on 2014, while the Mint’s silver sales in 2015 had reached 7.3 million ounces, a … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
A remarkable but little noticed development has occurred behind the scenes of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) over the last 3 years. This development concerns the very high level of executive staff turnover at World Gold Trust Services, the New York based ‘Sponsor’ of the mammoth gold GLD gold-backed Exchange Traded Fund that is listed … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 12 Comments
One of the most notable developments accompanying the gold price rally of 2016 has been the very large additions to the gold bar holdings of the major physically backed gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). This is especially true of the SPDR Gold Trust (ticker GLD). The gold bar holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust peaked at 1353 … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
Within the world of central bank and government gold reserves, there is often an assumption that these gold holdings consist entirely of gold bullion bars. While this is true in some cases, it is not the fully story because many central banks and governments, such as the US, France, Italy, Switzerland, the UK and Venezuela, … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Last year I published two posts featuring the 2013 refinery production statistics of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Good Delivery Refiners (gold and silver). The first post, “Moving the goalposts….The LBMA’s shifting stance on gold refinery production statistics“, looked primarily at how, in May 2015, the LBMA had first published a 2013 gold refining output... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
Within the last 2 months, there have been a series of developments in the London Gold Market, each of which has involved Chinese-controlled banking group ICBC Standard Bank Plc. On 4 April, the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) announced that ICBC Standard Bank had been reclassified as a LBMA Market Making member for the OTC spot … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
The platinum and palladium markets arguably receive more focus during the third week of May than at any other time of the year. This is due to a series of events hosted in London known as London Platinum Week. London Platinum Week, which also covers other platinum group metals such as palladium, is coordinated by … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
I was recently interviewed by financial journalist Lars Schall on behalf of Swiss based Matterhorn Asset Management. Our interview covered the German and Russian gold markets, Venezuela’s official gold reserves, the secrecy of the London gold market, and the outlook for the gold price, among a number of other topics. Matterhorn kindly granted me permission to … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
Exactly 19 months to the day after the International Board of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) held its first full trading session on 19 September 2014, the Shanghai Gold Exchange launched the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price auction on 19 April 2016. In China, the number 19 is very auspicious since it consists of lucky number … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
HSBC’s main gold vault in London regularly comes under the media spotlight for a number of reasons. These reasons include: a) the HSBC London vault stores a very large amount of gold on behalf of gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds, primarily the well-known SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) b) along with the Bank of England vaults and … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
In a surprising development, a group of plaintiffs in an antitrust litigation case against Deutsche Bank, HSBC Bank plc, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and UBS AG, have just announced that Deutsche Bank is in the process of negotiating the formal terms of a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs. Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Scotia are the … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
The article “From Good Delivery bars to Kilobars – The Swiss Refineries, the GFMS data, and the LBMA" examined the mountain of evidence concerning the known Swiss conversion of Good Delivery bars into kilobars for export to gold markets in the East. As a further step in this process, it’s worth taking a look at the … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
When Singapore Exchange (SGX) launched a physically-delivered gold kilobar contract in October 2014, there was much fanfare from the contract’s promoters (SGX, World Gold Council, IE Singapore and the Singapore Bullion Market Association) that the SGX Gold Kilobar would kick-start exchange-based gold kilobar trading in the Singapore gold market, while providing liquidity, price... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 3 Comments
Following on from last month in which BullionStar’s Koos Jansen broke the news that Venezuela had sent almost 36 tonnes of its gold reserves to Switzerland at the beginning of the year, “Venezuela Exported 36t Of Its Official Gold Reserves To Switzerland In January“, there have now been further interesting developments in this ongoing saga. … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 10 Comments
On 28 January 2016, the midday LBMA Silver Price auction took 29 rounds to establish a final price of US$13.58 which was manipulated down by a whopping 6% below where silver spot and futures prices were trading at that time. This auction fiasco and price manipulation has caused deep concern among silver benchmark price users … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
Following on from the recent blog post “G4S London Gold Vault 2.0 – ICBC Standard Bank in, Deutsche Bank out“, which discusses the G4S precious metals vault located on Abbey Road in the Park Royal area of London, its instructive to also look at where the other London Gold Market vaults are located. According to … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
Deutsche Bundesbank has just released a progress report on its gold bar repatriation programme for 2015 – “Frankfurt becomes Bundesbank’s largest gold storage location“. During the calendar year to December 2015, the Bundesbank claims to have transported 210 tonnes of gold back to Frankfurt, moving circa 110 tonnes from Paris to Frankfurt, and just under … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
On 8 January 2016, Reuters broke the news that ICBC Standard Bank has purchased the lease on Deutsche Bank’s gold vault in London, and that ICBC Standard intends to become a member of the clearing syndicate, London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL): “ICBC Standard Bank is buying the lease on Deutsche Bank’s London gold and … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 43 Comments
In early September 2015, I wrote an article titled “Moving the goalposts….The LBMA’s shifting stance on gold refinery production statistics”, in which I explained how the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) had, on Wednesday 5 August, substantially lowered its 2013 gold and silver refinery production statistics literally a few days after I had commented on … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
Five months ago in my article “Venezuela’s Gold Reserves – Part 2: From Repatriation to Reactivation“, I concluded that: “given the deteriorating state of Venezuela’s international finances and international reserves at the present time, it may be sooner rather than later before Venezuelan gold could be on the move again out of the country. One thing … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
Whereas some central banks have become more forthcoming on where they claim their official gold reserves are stored (see my recent blog post ‘Central bank gold at the Bank of England‘), many of the world’s central banks remain secretive in this regard, with some central bank staff saying that they are not allowed to provide … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 14 Comments
In a recent article, “How many Good Delivery gold bars are in all the London Vaults?….including the Bank of England vaults“, I considered how much gold is actually in the London Gold Market, and highlighted how the amount of gold stored in the London wholesale market has fallen noticeably in recent years. That article highlighted … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
It’s now been 6 months since the LBMA Gold Price auction, the much touted replacement to the London Gold Fixings, was launched on an ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) platform on Friday 20 March 2015. For anyone not au fait with the gold price auction, the LBMA Gold Price is a twice daily auction that produces … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 14 Comments
Each year in June, the Bank of England publishes its annual report which quotes financial data up to the end of February (its financial year-end). The Bank’s annual report also states the amount of gold, valued at a market price in Pounds sterling, that it holds under custody for its customers, which comprise central banks, … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
On Friday 31st July 2015, I released an article discussing the sale of Swiss gold refiner Valcambi to Indian jewellery company Rajesh Exports. In my report, in a section about Valcambi’s annual gold refining capacity, I made passing reference to 2013 gold refining production statistics that had been published by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Below is an interesting 1988 discussion paper on gold, written by Bank of England staff. The original paper can be found in pdf here. The United Kingdom’s gold reserves belong to HM Treasury (HMT) and are held in the Exchange Equalisation Account (EEA), but managed by the Bank of England on behalf of HMT. The discussion paper … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 6 Comments
The normally low-key Swiss gold refining market has been thrown into the spotlight with the announcement that private company Valcambi, the world’s largest gold refinery, is being acquired by Indian group Rajesh Exports Ltd (REL), the world’s largest gold jewellery manufacturer. This acquisition is worth analysing for a number of reasons, namely will the Valcambi-Rajesh... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
The financial media has recently pitched the transition of the London daily gold fixings to an ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) platform as a quantum leap from an antiquated Victorian-era process to a futuristic 21st century electronic auction. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently said that: “Four of the banks…had participated in the conference call used to... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
In a little noticed development at the end of March 2015, World Gold Council (WGC) member company Newcrest Mining of Australia ceased to be a member of the WGC, thereby reducing the Council’s membership from 19 to 18 gold mining companies. Newcrest Mining is one of the world’s largest gold mining companies and Australia’s largest … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has just released a new batch of diplomatic cables from the year 1978, which can be searched and browsed via the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) website at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/. These batches of cables are variously known as “State Department Cables“, “Diplomatic Records" or “Central Foreign... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Part 1, titled “Venezuela’s Gold Reserves – Part 1: El Oro, El BCV, y Los Bancos de Lingotes“, provided a historical overview of Venezuela’s gold and looked at where the gold, and the claims on gold, were located just prior to repatriation in 2011, especially the gold … Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 7 Comments
(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
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
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
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
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
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