Thursday, February 14, 2013

Central Banks Last Year Bought Most Gold Since 1964

The world's central banks last year bought 534.6 tons of gold in 2012, the most since 1964, the World Gold Council said in a quarterly report.

Purchases by central banks for the full year rose 17% compared with 2011, while fourth-quarter purchases of 145 tons marked a 29% rise from the same period a year earlier. "Central banks' move from net sellers of gold to net buyers that we have seen in recent years has continued apace," with official sector purchases across the world now at their highest level for almost half a century, said Marcus Grubb, managing director for investment at the World Gold Council.

“China and India remain the world’s gold power houses, and by some distance, despite challenging domestic economic conditions. In India, consumer sentiment towards gold remained strong despite measures aimed at curbing demand, reaffirming gold’s role in Indian society. In an underdeveloped financial system in India, gold has an important role to play.Notwithstanding the predicted economic slowdown in China, investment demand was up 24% in Q4 on the previous quarter and jewellery consumption held steady at 137.0t. ," Grubb continued.

6 comments:

  1. Gold (physical coins and bars, not paper), get you some...without undue delay. You will be glad you did.

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  2. Does not compute. Krugman says gold is a barbarous relic. They must not be listening to him.

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  3. This may be a stupid question, but... who da hek is selling it? All I've been reading lately is how much gold central banks are buying. It all makes sense, except for the fact that somebody has to sell it. Who has a lot of gold and why are they selling it? Why don't we heard about that? I don't want to believe that the mining companies were just hoarding it with little or no demand.

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    1. My understanding is that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is the central banker for government central banks. The BIS arranges central bank gold sales and purchases via private (off-market) transactions so as not to impact public market prices. I suspect the bullion banks may be the actual source of the gold in some cases.

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    2. Scrap gold, miners, other central banks

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  4. "In an underdeveloped financial system in India, gold has an important role to play"

    lol

    Snide pricks.

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