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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
4 Comments
A recent gold related article from newspaper ‘The Telegraph’ revisited the infamous United Kingdom gold sales of 1999 which were conducted under Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time Gordon Brown.
This article prompted Robert Pringle, founder of Central Banking Publications, first executive director of the Group of 30, and former head of World Gold Council's public policy... Continue Reading 
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
Since 2014, there have been a staggering six Chief Financial Officers in charge of accounting at the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, the famous NYSE listed SPDR Gold Trust (GLD).
Specialists in recruitment, sell-side analysts, and human resources academics all agree that high CFO turnover is something that raises red flags in corporate environments. It is also something... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 12 Comments
In January 2013, Germany’s Bundesbank announced that the deadline for its substantial gold repatriation plan was the year 2020. Two years later in 2015, the Austrian central bank in a similar move said that it too had a 2020 deadline for its gold repatriation operation.
Were these central banks inadvertently revealing that 2020 would usher in a monetary reset? Fast forward to... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 10 Comments
Another month, another US court case involving precious metals traders from the big banks being prosecuted for manipulating gold and silver prices.
This time it is traders from Germany’s Deutsche Bank being prosecuted by the US DoJ. But one important point that the media has missed is that one of these traders was a director of the critically important London Gold and Silver... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Claiming a sudden need for increased transparency, the Bank of England and LBMA in London have now moved from reporting gold and silver vault inventories on a 3 month lagged basis to a 1 month lagged basis.
However, there is more to this move than meets the eye, and the change looks to be part of a regulatory concession before rolling out COMEX contract delivery using metal... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 9 Comments
A few weeks ago, in a very stealthy manner, CME Group in coordination with the LBMA, massively expanded the lists of approved gold and silver bar brands that can be delivered against the flagship COMEX GC 100 gold and SI silver contracts.
While this signals gold and silver bar delivery constraints at the COMEX, that is only half the story, as the real intention of these changes... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 15 Comments
The latest SEC filing by the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) released this week contains the bombshell detail that the world’s largest gold-backed ETF is increasingly resorting to sourcing gold bars at the Bank of England. At least 70 tonnes of gold and possibly up to 150 tonnes.
With GLD and its custodian HSBC resorting to such tactics and interfacing with the murky world of central... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
After rising rapidly to the $2070 range, the US dollar gold price has now corrected sharply . What took nearly 2 weeks to go up, has now unwound in a matter of 3-4 days. But sometimes this is the nature of corrections, sharp and extreme.
Corrections are healthy and form stronger support. Markets never continually move in one direction. Over 12 years ago, famous gold guru Jim... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 7 Comments
In what is a memorable week for gold and silver prices, the US dollar price of gold is approaching an all time high, while the price of silver has surged this week by over 18%.
The current price action in gold and silver is igniting investment interest in everything from gold and silver mining shares to precious metals ETFs, while in the physical bullion markets, savers and... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
Zing News, one of Vietnam’s leading news and media platforms, this week published an article examining the reasons behind the strong upward move in the gold price and its sustainability, quoting extensively from BullionStar's input.
In Vietnam, which has a very strong tradition of gold ownership and use of physical gold in transactions, the Zing News digital newspaper has... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Triggered by a COMEX-Spot spread blow out in the wake of a delivery failure in gold Exchange for Physical (EFP) transactions, an unprecedented 730 tonnes of gold has flowed into COMEX gold vaults between 24 March and 30 June, mostly into the vaults of JP Morgan and Brink's.
The chain of events can be traced back to the LBMA rush on 24 March to “facilitate physical delivery of... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
As a former Banque de France central banker joins the board of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) as an “Independent” director, replacing a former New York Federal Reserve central banker who also served on the same board as an “Independent” director, we must ask ourselves why have these central bankers so much interest in gold and the LBMA.
Particularly as the... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 9 Comments
The unprecedented shock which London and New York gold markets experienced beginning 23-24 March left a lot of fallout in its wake, from bullion banks scrambling to secure physical gold to send to New York, to deteriorating liquidity in both the COMEX and London markets.
Yet three months on from the detonation whose blast waves were felt on both sides of the Atlantic, the... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
There is something broken in the London gold market and the evidence points back to HSBC, both in physical and paper gold. During April, HSBC began turning to the Bank of England gold vaults to source at least 45 tonnes of gold for the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD). Did HSBC run out of gold in its own secretive London vault?
Now it emerges that... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 11 Comments
While media focus has recently been on the current gold price dislocation between London spot and COMEX New York futures, there is another persistently large discount that so far has evaded the spotlight. That is the twice daily LBMA Gold Price benchmark.
By ignoring the much higher COMEX gold futures prices while setting the LBMA Gold Price auction starting price, the auction... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
The US Mint has just implemented an indefinite shutdown to its West Point Mint facility due to a surge in coronavirus cases in Orange County New York where the West Point Mint is located.
As the only production facility for the famous American gold Eagles and American gold Buffalo bullion coins, the West Point shutdown puts a further strain on an already constrained supply... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 10 Comments
A newly discovered document from COMEX operator CME to the CFTC contains a full-scale admission that much of the ‘eligible gold inventory’ in COMEX New York vaults is held by long-term holders and cannot be included in deliverable supply.
The COMEX concedes that eligible gold should therefore have a 50% haircut applied. With this bombshell admission, it means there is far... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
As the saga of the large price differential continues to persist between COMEX gold futures prices and London gold spot prices, it is obvious that all is not well with the bullion banks in the paper gold markets.
And this is despite statements galore from the LBMA and COMEX and the launch of a new gold futures contract. The underlying problem seems to be the LBMA gold market... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
In the space of a week, the bullion bank dominated LBMA and CME(COMEX) in an air of panic, have issued not one, but two rushed out statements to try to placate the global gold market.
In the modern gold market this is unprecedented. While LBMA-CME claim that physical gold stocks in London and New York are at healthy levels, the reality is far more concerning. Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 8 Comments
As the LBMA and CME scramble to keep the paper gold show on the road and monopolise gold price discovery, they have now launched a new gold futures contract which is deliverable using 400 oz gold bars.
But according to the COMEX gold vault inventory report, there are no 400 oz gold bars in any of the COMEX approved vaults in New York. Is this yet again a giant smokescreen by... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 6 Comments
With extreme demand and supply shortages in the physical gold market, it was only a matter of time before the paper gold markets in London and New York would come under strain. That time is now.
With the spot price of gold lagging the price of COMEX gold futures for the third day running, the LBMA is now colluding with the COMEX on bailing out bullion banks. But who is bailing... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
Unprecedented demand for physical precious metals. Unprecedented supply chain delays in the precious metals supply chain. Real and present disconnects between the physical gold price and the prices set by COMEX/LBMA.
In theory you would think that this is all great material for reporters covering the latest developments in the physical gold market in Asia. Maybe for some, but... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
The turmoil engulfing financial markets is unprecedented in its breath and intensity. You might call it a perfect storm. In such an environment, no asset class has been immune. But will gold be the last man standing? Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 20 Comments
As global stock markets reeled last week on continued newsflow around the coronavirus, the US dollar gold price made a seven-year high early in the week, only to fall sharply on Friday.
But with this ‘gold price’ derived on the COMEX gold futures market, it is detached from the reality of the current strong demand that BullionStar is seeing for physical gold. Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
From quarantined cities to lower consumer demand, from reduced flight traffic to closed frontiers and boarders, the economic shock to the domestic Chinese gold market caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus should not be underestimated.
While we can't examine much live data from the Chinese gold market right now, we can review Chinese gold market activity up to the end of... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 9 Comments
In a brazen attack on precious metals and economic freedom, the German government has just introduced draconian new rules on buying precious metals.
Brought in with zero evidence under the guise of money laundering prevention, short term it created panic gold buying by Germany’s population but long term it's a continuation of the all too familiar statist war against gold and... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 11 Comments
This week the LBMA in London claims that a record 8,228 tonnes of gold is held in the London vaults, vaults which include those at the Bank of England and the commercial vaults of such bullion banks as JP Morgan and HSBC.
But beyond the headline figure, how much of this gold is available to underpin the gargantuan daily trading volumes of the London gold market? Very little as... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
In a quantum leap for an investment bank to make, Dutch bank ABN AMRO has just gone on record questioning if a world with two gold prices would be better, one price that would reflect trading of real physical gold, and the other which would represent paper and synthetic gold products.
Although a welcome step from the Dutch bank, it fails to acknowledge the structural forces... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Gold is and always has been universal money that can be used anywhere and is accepted everywhere. The world’s elite military detachments know this, which is why they issue their troops and pilots with gold coins and other gold bullion items for use as emergency money when they go behind enemy lines. Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
The Polish central bank has just succeeded in extracting 100 tonnes of its gold from the Bank of England in London, and this gold now rests safely back in Warsaw in the vaults of the National Bank of Poland.
Moving 100 tonnes of gold - 8000 central bank gold bars - Poland’s gold repatriation operation involved top secret motorcades, elite police escorts, jumbo jet air... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
Ever been confused between the COMEX ‘registered’ and ‘eligible’ gold categories on the COMEX New York gold vault reports? You wouldn’t be the first. But now the CME has made it even more complex by introducing a new ‘pledged gold’ category representing COMEX registered gold that has been used as collateral.
But with pledged gold unable to be used for gold futures... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
After announcing gold reserve purchases for ten straight months between December 2018 and September 2019, the Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has now paused gold buying for October, at least according to latest figures.
But what to make of Chinese official gold buying communication in general? It’s instructive to look at China’s stop-start gold... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 6 Comments
History is replete with examples of gold being the ultimate asset in times of crisis and emergency, where time and time again, gold comes to the rescue and provides its holders with choice and freedom.
These crisis situations range from fiat currencies collapses, to gold buying safe passage across international borders, from periods in which gold can rescue an entire nation, to... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
In a development whose impact is still unclear, the world’s largest gold derivatives trading venue, the US COMEX, and the world’s largest physical gold trading exchange, the Chinese SGE, have just jointly launched gold derivatives contracts, potentially binding each other into a price feedback loop.
Could this be a case of the massively influential COMEX gold trading now... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 7 Comments
The LBMA claims to be the global authority for precious metals, but it is an organization stacked full of bullion banks which trade gigantic volumes of synthetic paper promises, and an organization which does nothing to champion the interests of savers and investors in physical precious metals.
Founded by a group of bullion banks and the Bank of England, the LBMA and its... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 3 Comments
Earlier this week BullionStar broke the news that the JP Morgan head of precious metals trading, Michael Nowak, who is at the center of the DoJ’s criminal investigation into precious metals market manipulation, was also a current board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).
Following this revelation, we also talked to the Financial Times on Thursday, which... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 6 Comments
Michael Nowak, JP Morgan Chase managing director and Board member of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has just been charged by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) with manipulating the prices of precious metals-futures contracts over an 8 year period.
Nowak sits on the LBMA Board along with LBMA chairman Paul Fisher, LBMA CEO Ruth Crowell, and LBMA General Counsel... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
This month marks the centenary of the London Gold Fixing, with events at both Rothschild’s headquarters in the City of London and at the neighboring Bank of England.
Billed as a momentous occasion by the bullion bank-controlled London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the celebrations gloss over and conveniently forget to mention that the history of the London Gold Fixing is... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
Cross-border gold flows into the world’s largest gold market are now available monthly following a recent move by Chinese customs authorities to publish gold imports and exports in an online database.
While China imported 994 tonnes of gold over the first seven months of 2018, the corresponding import figure for 2019 is a lot lower. But why is this? Is it a move by the... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 8 Comments
The US Federal Reserve has just cut it’s federal funds rate by 0.25%, the first time it has done so in over 10 years.
This change in direction by the central bank of the world’s biggest economy has more to it than the Fed board will say, and the US now rejoins the global central bank game of currency debasement and QE to infinity.
In this environment, gold tends... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
After 20 years and three renewals, the signatories to the Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA), a cartel like syndicate of central banks in Europe, have just announced that they will not be renewing the Agreement when it expires this coming September.
While the real purpose of the CBGA was always different to its stated purpose, it appears likely that the Agreement while it ran... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 10 Comments
In addition to commercial bank manipulation of gold and silver futures prices and central bank manipulation of gold by policy, there is arguably another form of manipulation in the precious metals markets which is far more influential in subduing price discovery.
This is the manipulation embedded into the very structure of modern financialized commodities markets, which trade... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 5 Comments
In a stunning development which is yet to be fully digested by the gold market, the central bank of Poland announced last Friday that it has purchased 100 tonnes of gold so far this year, boosting its gold reserves to 228.6 tonnes.
While all the Polish gold is still held at the Bank of England in London, this is about to change, and the Poles plan to imminently repatriate... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
At a recent conference in Tokyo on the Future of Asia, Malaysia’s perennial prime minister Mahathir called for a pan-Asian gold-backed currency that could be used in international trade settlement.
While an interesting proposal, Mahathir’s idea is a repackaged version of his gold dinar scheme which never really got off the ground.
Asia has the ability to shift to... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 6 Comments
With the fourth Central Bank Gold Agreement (CBGA) about to expire in September, a relevant question now is will there be a fifth CBGA?
Devised by a cartel of western central banks, the first two CBGAs achieved what they had intended to i.e. provide cover over 1999 - 2008 to close off gold sales and loans that had taken place years before.
And as China, Russia and... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 4 Comments
The gold price is now making new multi-year and all time highs in many of the world’s most important and most liquid fiat currencies, including the commodity currencies of the Canadian dollar and Australian dollar, and other major currencies such as the Swedish Krona, Singapore dollar, British pound and Euro.
A new multi-year high in US dollar gold is also a possibility right... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 0 Comments
In the midst of non-stop headlines about the US Chinese trade war and its associated tariffs, one sector of the Chinese economy which is business as usual is the Chinese gold market.
From metrics of SGE gold withdrawals to central bank gold purchases, from Chinese gold imports to Chinese gold mining, the world’s biggest gold market continues to siphon off huge quantities of... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 2 Comments
In a move that is anything but ‘leveling the playing field’ in the London bullion market, the LBMA has now moved to charging US$ 1500 per month for even a glimpse into the shadowy trading data of the opaque bullion banks in London.
Going completely against the spirit of the UK Fair and Efficient Markets Review, while maintaining the fiction of increased transparency, the... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 7 Comments
On its sporadic visits to the US Mint’s bullion depository at West Point, New York, the attending media only ever sees a ‘working vault’ of about 3000 gold bars used as input into the Mint’s bullion coin minting programs.
This is despite the West Point Mint claiming to store 54 million ounces (135,000 gold bars) across 11 ‘deep storage’... Continue Reading
Ronan Manly 1 Comments
With news that the French Bank, SocGen, has exited from market making in the London gold and silver markets, does this signal something amiss and the beginnings of a new wave of defections, as further bullion banks run for the exits?
This latest departure by SocGen now means that four of the five members of the former infamous Gold Fixing auctions in London have now run into... Continue Reading
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