Ronan Manly

Summer of 17: LBMA Confirms Upcoming Publication of London Gold Vault Holdings

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• Ronan Manly
• 2 Comments

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The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has now confirmed that it will begin publishing gold and silver holdings data for the London based commercial precious vaults sometime during the summer of 2017. Details on this new data are still sketchy as the press release issued by the LBMA has not confirmed in what format the data will be issued, what historical time periods if any will... Continue Reading

Bank of England releases new data on its gold vault holdings

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• Ronan Manly
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The Bank of England has just published new data on its website detailing month-end gold custody holdings for gold held within its vaults. This data covers every month for the last 6 years i.e. from January 2012 to December 2016. Going forward, the Bank of England will publish updates to this data with a 3 month lag. The new gold vault data will be very useful for seeing the ebbs and... Continue Reading

Sweden’s Gold Reserves: 10,000 gold bars shrouded in Official Secrecy

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• Ronan Manly
• 3 Comments

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In October 2013, the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, for the first time revealed the storage locations of its sizeable gold bar reserves. Sweden claims to hold 125.7 tonnes of gold scattered across central bank gold vaults in New York, London, Canada, Switzerland and also in Sweden. At the time, the Riksbank also claimed it was going to start to physically audit this gold. Fast... Continue Reading

Death Spiral for the LBMA Gold and Silver auctions?

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• Ronan Manly
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This week the LBMA Silver Price and LBMA Gold Price daily auctions were both hit by unusual price movements over two consecutive days, on 10 April and 11 April. In both cases, the prices being quoted in the auctions deviated noticeably from their respective spot prices. There is little information on what exactly happened in the silver auction since none of CME (calculation agent),... Continue Reading

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

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• Ronan Manly
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Following the July 2015 acquisition of Swiss gold and silver Valcambi by Indian group Rajesh Exports, and the July 2016 acquisition of Swiss precious metals refiner Metalor Technologies by Japanese Tanaka Precious Metals, it has now been announced that German industrial group Heraeus, a leading precious refiner, has moved to fully acquire the giant Argor-Heraeus gold and silver refinery... Continue Reading

Mexico’s Earmarked Gold Bars at the Bank of England vaults

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• Ronan Manly
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In response to a Freedom of Information Request by Mexican financial writer Guillermo Barba, Mexico’s central bank Banixco, has just a released a quite comprehensive list of 7265 gold bars that it holds in the Bank of England’s gold vaults. This is unusual in that very few central banks ever allow publication of such a list. While the Banixco list does not include real serial... Continue Reading

More Bad News for the LBMA Silver Price, but an Opportunity for Overhaul

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• Ronan Manly
• 6 Comments

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News that Thomson Reuters and the CME intend to abandon ship as administrator and calculation agent of the LBMA Silver Price auction has raised more than a few eyebrows, especially since they appear to be linking the exit to the introduction of new European Benchmark Regulations. Whatever the reason for their departure mid-way through their service provision contract, it now provides a... Continue Reading

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

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• Ronan Manly
• 3 Comments

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The Deutsche Bundesbank’s announcement in early February that it had moved 300 tonnes of gold from the New York Fed to Frankfurt in a laughable 4 years threw the mainstream financial media into a back-slapping frenzy as they rushed to congratulate the German central bank for an exercise that should have only taken a couple of weeks to complete. Back in 1967 and 1968, the very same NY... Continue Reading

A Chink of Light into London’s Gold Vaults?

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• Ronan Manly
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A chink of light may be about to shine on the gold bars held in the London Gold Market vaults. Both the Bank of England and London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) have announced that relatively soon, they will begin to publish data on the quantity of gold physically held in the series of vaults that make up the London gold vaulting network. More data than less is always welcome,... Continue Reading

Lukewarm start for new London Gold Futures Contracts

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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In late 2016, three financial exchange providers each announced in rapid succession the launch of a London based gold futures contract. These providers are the London Metal Exchange (LME), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and the CME Group. ICE and CME gold futures contracts have gone live in the last 2 weeks, but neither has seen a single trade. LME plans to launch its gold futures... Continue Reading

Ireland’s Monetary Gold Reserves: High Level Secrecy vs. Freedom of Information – Part 2

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• Ronan Manly
• 5 Comments

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This article, the second in a series, looks at the difficulty experience in obtaining basic information out of the Central Bank of Ireland about Ireland's monetary gold reserves, even while using a Freedom of Information request. The Request was refused, and then on appeal partially actioned. However, throughout the process there was a feeling that the Central Bank was not divulging the... Continue Reading

Ireland's Monetary Gold Reserves - High Level Secrecy vs FOI

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• Ronan Manly
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Obtaining basic details about central bank gold holdings is a subject which without exception the mainstream financial media never appears to broach. However, various independent researchers have documented attempts at obtaining such details of sovereign / central bank gold holdings. This article (Part 1) and its sequel (Part 2) add to the documented evidence by summarising how a series... Continue Reading

Who Owns the World’s Largest Gold Hoards? – Not the Central Banks!

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• Ronan Manly
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Given that central banks are extremely secretive about 'their' gold reserves, it's important to note that the majority of these central banks do not even own the gold that they go to great lengths to hide the details of. In most cases, the sovereign states which the central banks answer to own the gold. Taken to its logical conclusion, the citizens of the sovereign states own the gold,... Continue Reading

COMEX and ICE New York Gold Vault Reports both Overstate Eligible gold Inventories

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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Gold futures trade in New York on both the COMEX & ICE exchanges. Both exchanges also utilize the same network of approved gold vault facilities located in and around New York City. However, neither the ICE vault report nor the COMEX vault report takes account of the other Exchange's registered gold. Therefore both reports overstate the true amount of eligible gold in each of the... Continue Reading

Guest Post: How to Trigger a Silver Avalanche by a Pebble: "Smash(ed) it Good"

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• Ronan Manly
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UBS and other precious metals traders on how to wreak havoc in silver markets Written by Allan Flynn, specialist researcher in aspects of gold and silver. “An avalanche can be triggered by a pebble if you get the timing right" Earlier this year at April’s hearings for London Silver and Gold Fix lawsuits, the judge and … Continue Reading

European Central Bank gold reserves held across 5 locations. ECB will not disclose Gold Bar List.

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• Ronan Manly
• 4 Comments

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The European Central Bank (ECB), creator of the Euro, currently claims to hold 504.8 tonnes of gold reserves. These gold holdings are reflected on the ECB balance sheet and arose from transfers made to the ECB by Euro member national central banks, mainly in January 1999 at the birth of the Euro. As of the … Continue Reading

Swiss gold refinery Argor-Heraeus to be acquired by Private Equity investors

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• Ronan Manly
• 4 Comments

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News has just emerged in the gold market that the giant Swiss precious metals refiner, Argor-Heraeus, has held discussions to be acquired, and that the likely outcome is an acquisition by a private equity group. This private equity group is believed to be London-based WRM CapInvest, part of Zurich headquartered WRM Capital. Other interested buyers are … Continue Reading

Bullion Banks pass the parcel on El Salvador's gold reserves

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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Eighteen months ago I wrote a short synopsis of a gold sales transaction by the central bank of El Salvador wherein it had sold 80% (about 5.5 tonnes) of its official gold reserves. The title of the post was “El Salvador’s gold reserves, the BIS, and the bullion banks“. If you thought, why the focus … Continue Reading

Tracking the gold held in London: An update on ETF and BoE holdings

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• Ronan Manly
• 2 Comments

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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

From Bank of England to LBMA - The 'Independent' Chair of the LBMA Board

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Blood Brothers: The Bank of England and the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA)

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• Ronan Manly
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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

From Gold Trains to Gold Loans – Banca d’Italia’s Mammoth Gold Reserves

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Guest Post: "Very skeptical" judge - former FBI/SEC official eyes London gold and silver fix lawsuits

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Chinese Gold Bar Photos – Lost in Translation

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• Ronan Manly
• 11 Comments

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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

IMF Gold Sales - Where 'Transparency' means 'Secrecy'

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• Ronan Manly
• 2 Comments

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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

Is there any gold bullion stored at the US Mint in Denver?

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• Ronan Manly
• 2 Comments

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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

The Charade Continues – London Gold and Silver Markets set for even more paper trading

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• Ronan Manly
• 3 Comments

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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

GLD Sponsor dodges disclosure details of Bank of England sub-custodian in latest SEC filing

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Austrian Mint sells 41 tonnes of gold coins and gold bars in 2015

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Execs flee GLD – The revolving door at the SPDR Gold Trust Sponsor

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

SPDR Gold Trust gold bars being held at the Bank of England

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• Ronan Manly
• 12 Comments

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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

Central Bank & Governments and their gold coin holdings

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

Apples and Oranges: An update on LBMA Refinery Statistics and GFMS

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• Ronan Manly
• 2 Comments

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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

Spotlight on LPMCL: London Precious Metals Clearing Limited

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• Ronan Manly
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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

LPPM – The London Platinum and Palladium Market

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

Lars Schall Matterhorn Interview with Ronan Manly, April 2016

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price - New Kid on the Block

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• Ronan Manly
• 4 Comments

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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

HSBC’s London Gold Vault: Is this Gold’s Secret Hiding Place?

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Deutsche Bank agrees to settle with Plaintiffs in London Silver Fixing litigation

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

The Gold Vaults of Hong Hong: Brinks, Loomis, Malca Amit and G4S

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• Ronan Manly
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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

SGX Kilobar Gold contract vs Trading with BullionStar

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• Ronan Manly
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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

Venezuela exported 12.5 tonnes of gold to Switzerland on 8 March 2016, via Paris

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• Ronan Manly
• 3 Comments

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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

The LBMA Silver Price – Broken Promises on Wider Participation and Central Clearing

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• Ronan Manly
• 10 Comments

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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

The Gold Vaults of London: Malca-Amit

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

Update on Bundesbank Gold Repatriation 2015

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• Ronan Manly
• 5 Comments

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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

G4S London Gold Vault 2.0 – ICBC Standard Bank in, Deutsche Bank out

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

From Good Delivery bars to Kilobars – The Swiss Refineries, the GFMS data, and the LBMA

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• Ronan Manly
• 43 Comments

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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

Venezuela says adiós to her gold reserves

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• Ronan Manly
• 1 Comments

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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

Central Banks’ secrecy and silence on gold storage arrangements

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• Ronan Manly
• 4 Comments

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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

Central bank gold at the Bank of England

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• Ronan Manly
• 14 Comments

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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