This has the highlights of a WSJ article I found interesting
So is Trump doing all this to make his gold shitter worth more?
We can’t have plastic straws to save the planet but banks are flying billions of dollars of gold across the Atlantic to make more money. Awesome.
Gold is all natural
There’s just something about the absurdity of it that struck me as funny.
The idea of moving an asset ahead of a potential import tax is not a big surprise. But, the idea that the price difference between London and NY is big enough to justify moving $4b in gold — with all of the attendant costs/risks — is a surprise. I’d guess some cargo handlers at JFK might find that news interesting.
Does it make sense for European nations to store such significant portions of their gold reserves in the U.S., given the threat the U.S. poses to Europe?
Securing immediate control over assets, mitigating reliance on an increasingly hostile foreign entity, and addressing vulnerabilities highlighted by recent global events will need to be balanced against maintaining some reserves in a key financial centre for trading purposes.
Just for fun I looked it up - a billion dollars worth of gold weighs around 20 tons.
Futures close versus PM London fix was 60 bucks today…that means a single bar of Loco London was worth 24K more for NY delivery than in London…Figuring in costs like Refabrication, shipping and lost leases (WAG coming up) they’re probably clearing 10K per bar (or more) plus increasing lease rates in London for their remaining gold) …4B was probably worth at least 30MM to 60MM in profit
So the whole amount is less than one 747F load
Well above the $10k that you have to declare that you’re bringing in on the Customs Declaration Form.
Failure to report could result in seizure of what’s brought in. Imagine if that happened 
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Hopefully not flying Lufthansa
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Three points
I presume the idea is that you need physical gold in NY in order to arbitrage that price difference. That is, if there were some purely financial way to buy in London and sell in NY — without physical delivery of some gold in NY — the price difference would (largely) have already disappeared. (?)
London is physical and Comex is futures. They are moving gold to NY to deliver against their short futures position because it’s cheaper to deliver the physical from London than buy back the short at a 60 dollar premium over London
You know what goes into gold mining and refining, and comes out of it besides the gold? Especially small timers in the woods.
Aqua Regia…it has water in its name
Not bad. Give yourself a couple points. In the lab, yes but not in the field. But i was referring to things like cyanide and mercury (although that’s natural too if you squint) .
My thoughts are the same. 20 dollars an ounce? It fluctuates more than that most days.
It’s the spread between the two