Central Bank Gold Leasing

The salespeople of the gold investment industry publish a lot of bold claims about central bank activities in the gold market (for example, here) along the lines of “All central banks want to suppress the gold price.“, “The central banks have secretly leased and sold most of their gold.” The present article is an attempt to summarize the facts that we know and to offer a rather different interpretation.

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Beware Of The Muppets In The Oil Market

The following chart shows the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil spot price in US$ (source: US Energy Information Administration).

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) from June 2002 to April 2012

Obviously, there was a speculative bubble from early 2007 to mid 2008 which then collapsed during the second half of 2008. In a series of articles, Chris Cook claims that the crude oil price has been in another bubble since the end of 2009 and that this bubble is just beginning to pop. The present article is an attempt at understanding the mechanics underlying Chris Cook’s ideas.

How Credit Suppresses the Gold Price (with Alice and Bob)

Alternative title: How Credit Creates Inflation
Alternative title: How Gresham’s Law Destroys the Gold Standard

Our small closed economy has five main protagonists, Alice the Automobile Saleswoman, Bob the Banker, Charlie the Capitalist, Dave the Debtor, and Steve the Saver. This small economy is on a gold coin standard, i.e. gold coins circulate as cash. In order to see how the real price of gold (measured in Ferrari sports cars) depends on the creation of credit, we consider the following scenarios.

• A cash based economy without any lending and without any banks.
• An economy with banks, but without lending.
• An economy with banks and with fractional reserve lending.
• An economy without banks, but with private-to-private lending.
• An economy without banks, but with commercial Real Bills.

Currency Wars: Why The United States Cannot Return To A Gold Standard

The book Currency Wars by James G. Rickards (Penguin, 2011) quickly became a bestseller not only in goldbug circles. One of the main theses presented by Rickards is that the United States ought to return to a Gold Standard.

Have you ever wondered whether this would be possible? The answer is No. But why not? The reason we give might strike you as rather unexpected, but it leads you right into the question of what will be the future international monetary system. The answer is that it is the existence of the Euro that prevents the United States from returning to a gold standard.

The Euro zone is set up in such a way that it values gold at its free market price. Since the Euro zone is a major global trade hub, they are in fact in a strong position to block any attempt by the United States at returning to a gold standard. They can rather force the US to value gold at its free market price, too. Any attempt at linking the US dollar to a fixed weight of gold is futile in the long run because this would eventually lead to an under-valuation of gold in US$ and thereby irreversibly drain gold reserves from the United States. In the present article, we explain these ideas in greater detail.

The Many Values Of Gold

The present article gives an overview of various ideas on how much an ounce of gold might be worth.

We know the price of an ounce of gold. Last week, on 3 February 2012, the price of gold was US$ 1734.00 per ounce (London pm fixing). So much about the price. But what is its value?

Backwardation in the Case of a Monetary Metal

Silver has been in backwardation at the LBMA according to the published SIFO (Silver Forward Offered Rates) since January 19, 2011. It has also been in backwardation at the COMEX (New York Commodity Exchange) since around February 7, 2011. Figure 1 shows the LBMA Silver Forward Offered Rate from November 22, 2010, to May 19, 2011.

Figure 1: LBMA Silver Forward Offered Rate (SIFO) 2010-2011

 
I was dissatisfied with much of what has been written on this topic. This is an attempt of a better explanation.

Summary

I explain that silver should not be viewed as an industrial commodity that is consumed, but that one should rather view US$ and silver as a currency pair. If one takes this point of view, backwardation is not a market inefficiency due to a supply shortage, but rather indicates counterparty risk.

Update (27 February 2012): Backwardation is also possible if US$ deposits are subject to carrying charges or if nominal interest rates are negative, see Red Alert Update.