Gold - How Far Will It Go..

[Arthur]

Gold bugs are predicting a run-up in November. Time to buy again?

 

[empirex]

Gold bugs are predicting a run-up in November. Time to buy again?

That would be a yes

Just look at what all the major countries are doing, China especially is on a gold buying frenzy getting their hands on as much gold as possible.

Big money is doing the same:

World’s richest man doubles down on gold

Over 2,600 billionaires (and 60,000 deca-millionaires) with more than 90 trillion to invest are starting to buy into the 1 trillion or so available stock of Gold (and less than 1 billion available in Silver)

 

[Geriatrix]

What Is The Bundesbank Worried About In The Gold Market?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...-bundesbank-worried-about-in-the-gold-market/

There’s an interesting story that the Bundesbank is calling in much of the gold stored on its behalf elsewhere in the world. What actually is worrying it? That no longer can you say something is “as safe as Fort Knox”? The answer could be that and it could be something a little more prosaic:

The revelation came as Germany’s budget watchdog demanded an on-site probe of the country’s remaining gold reserves in London, Paris, and New York to verify whether the metal really exists.

The country has 3,396 tons of gold worth €143bn (£116bn), the world’s second-largest holding after the US. Nearly all of it was shifted to vaults abroad during the Cold War in case of a Soviet attack.

Roughly 66pc is held at the New York Federal Reserve, 21pc at the Bank of England, and 8pc at the Bank of France. The German Court of Auditors told legislators in a redacted report that the gold had “never been verified physically” and ordered the Bundesbank to secure access to the storage sites.

It called for repatriation of 150 tons over the next three years to test the quality and weight of the gold bars. It said Frankfurt has no register of numbered gold bars.

When I first saw the story I wondered whether they had been worried by that story about tungsten filled gold bars being found:

Over the weekend there’s been some rather breathless speculation about how a gold bar has been found, one that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten.

But I think not. There’s also concern that the Bundesbank doesn’t actually know which gold bars it owns: it knows that it owns some tonnes, sure. Where those tonnes are supposed to be as well. But not exactly which ones in those vaults. There’s even some muttering that central banks have been lending out too much of their gold and that there might be a shortage.

My own suspicion is that this is all much more prosaic. The whole point of having gold as reserves is that you know you’ve got something of value down in the basement. During the cold war years it was felt that basements in London and the US were safer than one only a day’s drive for a Soviet tank division from the border. This is no longer true so why shouldn’t German gold be in a German basement?

 

[empirex]

The revelation came as Germany’s budget watchdog demanded an on-site probe of the country’s remaining gold reserves in London, Paris, and New York to verify whether the metal really exists.

Rehypothecation

As they say in the US; possession is nine-tenths of the law...

 

[empirex]

NETHERLANDS’ CITIZENS GROUP DEMANDS CENTRAL BANK REVEAL LOCATION OF COUNTRY’S GOLD RESERVES

First Venezuela, then Germany, and now the Netherlands want their gold back.
In the wake of this week’s ruling by the German Federal Accountability Office that Germany must repatriate and audit 150 tons of its gold reserves from the NY Fed over the next 3 years, a Netherlands citizens committee has filed a petition demanding the Central Bank release information ”on the quantity and storage location of the Netherlands’ physical gold, and on the extent and nature of the gold claims.”

In the words of one of the petitioners Tom Lassing: “The last years have seen a loss of trust in the financial system and we have been fooled a lot. So I say: Just let the central banks like DNB show the gold is really there.

Should the citizens committee be successful, we are confident they will discover the vast majority of the country’s gold reserves- 10th largest in the world at 612,000 kilograms, are held in the basement of the NY Fed.
As we stated several days ago, the jig is now up. The German accountability office will trigger an avalanche of gold audit, delivery, and repatriation requests around the Western world. We wish the Fed luck staying ahead of the cascading avalanche of requests to convert unallocated (rehypothecated) gold into solid physical metal. They’re going to need it.

From Nederlands Dageblad

Almost 300 “concerned Netherlands citizens” have joined the German initiative for insight about the gold reserves.
In a petition the citizens committee demands “full openness on the quantity and storage location of the Netherlands’ physical gold, and on the extent and nature of the gold claims.”

In Germany a lot of uneasiness has risen about the quantity, value, and quality of the gold reserves, which have not been audited in many years at various storage locations. Led by the tabloid newspaper Bild, German news media are wondering whether the 3.4-million kilograms of ingots are really there (valued at about E150 billion).
Under pressure from the German federal audit office, part of the gold stock will be repatriated from the United States to Frankfurt.

The Netherlands faces similar uneasiness about the position of its gold treasure — 612,000 kilograms with of a value of about E25 billion. The gold, in part located at De Nederlandse Bank in Amsterdam (about 10 percent), is also located at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in Ottawa, and London.

The Netherlands comes tenth on the list of gold reserves. The United States leads with 8.1 million kilograms. Germany comes second.

Tom Lassing, one of the signers of the petition and owner of the website beursbox.nl, says central banks are unjustly mysterious with gold reserves.

“The last years have seen a loss of trust in the financial system and we have been fooled a lot,” Lassing says. “So I say: Just let the central banks like DNB show the gold is really there.”

According his fellow signer Harm van Wijk of beursbulletin.nl there is every reason for an audit. “The reliability of politicians appeared not very great on the Greek issue, so rather than being ostriches we should seek certainty on the gold reserves.”

One of the concerns is that the gold reserves of central banks has been pledged repeatedly through negotiable title deeds. Experts like commodities dealer Eric Sprott maintain that there is much more “paper” gold in circulation than there are ingots in the bank vaults.

Since 1990 the Netherlands has sold almost 1.1 million kilograms of its gold reserves.

...

 

[empirex]

[video=youtube;RjQu9qFpStw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RjQu9qFpStw[/video]


In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss how it is that Gordon Brown's Bottom turned into an audit the gold movement in Germany. They also discuss the mother of all bond bubbles getting set to burst and all that will be left in the Bank of England 'gold' vaults are a big pile of gilts. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Dominic Frisby, author of Life After the State, about Germany's gold quest, the future of relations between the US and Germany if the gold is not there and about 'life after the state.'

 

[empirex]

Yowser.

Trillions in stock certificates feared damaged by Sandy

Trillions of dollars worth of stock certificates and other paper securities that were stored in a vault in lower Manhattan may have suffered water damage from Superstorm Sandy.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., an industry-run clearing house for Wall Street, said the contents of its vault "are likely damaged," after its building at 55 Water Street "sustained significant water damage" from the storm that battered New York City's financial district earlier this week.

The vault contains certificates registered to Cede & Co., a subsidiary of DTCC, as well as "custody certificates" in sealed envelopes that belong to clients.

The DTCC provides "custody and asset servicing" for more than 3.6 million securities worth an estimated $36.5 trillion, according to its website.

"At this point, it is premature to make an accurate assessment as to the full impact of the water damage nor would it be helpful to project on what specific actions need to be taken with respect to our vault," said DTCC Chief Executive Michael Bodson in a statement. "We are aggressively working on this situation to minimize disruption to our clients and will provide additional updates as more information becomes available."

Bodson said the DTCC's computer records are intact and that the corporation has "detailed inventory files of the contents of the vault."

The building remains inaccessible, but the lower floors are believed to be flooded. The full extent of the damage cannot be assessed until power is restored and the building is deemed safe to enter.

The DTCC has been operating from remote facilities since the onset of the storm and has maintained clearing, settlement and other services that are crucial to the functioning of Wall Street, according to Bodson.

Bodson said the DTCC is working with couriers to ensure that all deliveries are rerouted to a facility in Brooklyn, and the group expects all other services related to physical securities processing to resume "in the next several days," he added.

 

[empirex]

Gold is so safe at the Federal Reserve... that you'll never get it back!!

GERMAN CALLS FOR GOLD REPATRIATION INTENSIFY AS FED REFUSES TO ALLOW INSPECTION

Calls for Germany to repatriate its 1,536 tons of gold reserves held at the NY Fed are intensifying as Der Spiegel reports the Federal Reserve has refused to allow German inspectors to even view the country’s massive gold reserves “in the interest of security and of the control process“.

We have stated repeatedly that with repatriation and/or audit requests completed or in progress by Venezuela, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, The BOE and the Fed suddenly find themselves in a heap of trouble as the situation (and confidence that the Central banks actually still hold the tungsten / gold reserves on deposit) is rapidly deteriorating.

More on the Fed’s non-compliance with German requests to view/inspect their own gold below.

Der Spiegel reports that nearly half of Germany’s entire gold reserves are still held (supposedly) 5 floors below the NY Fed:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York continues to hold 1,536 metric tons of German gold — or nearly half of Berlin’s reserves. This enormous hoard of gold is stored in the fifth subfloor of the bank’s building on Liberty Street, 25 meters (80 feet) below street level, and 15 meters below sea level. According to the bank’s website, the vault rests on the bedrock of Manhattan Island.​

The Fed has reportedly denied German requests to view their own gold reserves, ‘in the interest of security’:

Tourists are allowed to venture below street level to see the vault. After descending in an elevator, they stand in front of an enormous steel cylinder that pivots like a door in a 140-ton steel-and-concrete frame. But not even the owners are allowed to view their own gold. According to the Federal Audit Office report, the Fed explained that “in the interest of security and of the control process” no “viewings” are possible.​

Of the 9 compartments supposedly storing German gold, German officials were finally allowed to briefly view a few bars from a single compartment in 2011:

Finally, in 2007, “following numerous enquiries,” Bundesbank staff members were allowed to see the facility, but they reportedly only made it to the anteroom of the German reserves.

In fact, auditors from the Bundesbank made a second visit in May 2011. This time one of the nine compartments was also opened, in which the German gold bars are densely stacked. A few were pulled out and weighed. But this part of the report has been blacked out — out of consideration for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.​

Unlike the US financial MSM, the German media is willing to discuss not only the question of whether the Federal Reserve has absconded with Germany’s gold, but also the risk of a collapse of a fully fiat currency:

The debate over a collapse of strictly paper-based currency is experiencing a renaissance — as is the dispute over the gold reserves. Even Green Party financial expert Gerhard Schick has joined the fray: “I think the question of how much gold is available in an emergency is a valid concern.”​

Not surprisingly, Bundesbank officials are attempting to smooth over German concerns about their gold reserves, with board member Thiele snidely remarking that he took a look inside of one of the vaults at the NY Fed recently, and “There was no paper in there, just gold.“:

he Bundesbank also objects to this notion for another reason. It says the gold is supposed to act as an emergency buffer. In the extreme situation of a currency collapse, the bankers say that the gold bars could easily and quickly be exchanged on location for pounds or dollars to pay urgent bills.

In a bid to calm the debate, the Bundesbank has pledged to bring back and inspect 150 tons of gold from abroad over the next three years. Furthermore, there are plans to count and weigh the gold bars stored in one of the nine chambers at the Fed in New York — although no date has been set for this.

Bundesbank board member Thiele was also recently in New York where he took a look behind one of the vault doors. He had good news for the members of the parliamentary budget committee: “There was no paper in there, just gold.”​

While Bundesbank officials likely understand the reality (much better than German politicians do) that a German repatriation of it’s entire 1,536 tons of gold reserves held at the NY Fed would likely cause a complete Western financial collapse if/when the Fed failed to promptly deliver said gold (tungsten free), confidence in the Fed and the BOE has clearly been shattered, and it is now only a matter of time for an absolute mad run on every last gram of physical metal underneath the NY Fed ensues.