| ▲ | carefree-bob 4 hours ago |
| Good for France to relocate gold back to their own territory, but, uh, how can this result in a 15 B gain? "The overall size of France’s gold reserves still remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes, which are now entirely held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine." Is this some special form of French accounting, where the gold becomes more valuable when it returns to French soil? |
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| ▲ | stackbutterflow 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's gold only if it comes from the Dore région of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling metal. |
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| ▲ | sph 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That accent somehow migrated two characters too far. | | |
| ▲ | stavros 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Nah that's how it's spelled in French. | | |
| ▲ | sph 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | True, but ‘Doré’ means golden, and would make for a better joke. | | | |
| ▲ | rkomorn 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The French part in that sentence should be the name of the region (eg Doré(e) ), not "région", and if you wanted to use the French spelling of "région", you'd have to say "région Dore". Using the French spelling of région but the wrong word order doesn't make sense. | | |
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| ▲ | jjgreen 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | True connoisseurs prefer the metal from Lingots. |
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| ▲ | somenameforme 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Over about a year they sold their 'non-standard' (seems to be bars below the modern purity standards) US reserves, and replaced them with new reserves purchased elsewhere which are now stored in France. As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, they ended up making a bunch of dinero while also centralizing their reserves. |
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| ▲ | berkes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, Seems counterintuitive to me. This would only make gains when they bought the new gold before selling the old, or when there's some arbitrage going on between Gold/USD, Gold/EUR and USD/EUR. If they first sold the old for USD, then bought the new for USD, with a rising gold price, they'd miss the price-gain during the time between the trades, when they held the USD. It'd be a loss, not a gain. If there's some arbitrage going on, then I highly doubt that brings $15B gain. The differences would have to be huge. I think the (author (AI)) writing that article is simply mixing up stuff. I think this gain is not a cause-effect of the conversion, merely the gains from rising gold prices on the gold it holds over that period. | | |
| ▲ | tux3 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The source is a press conference where they state the total amount and total value of gold stored hasn't changed. In le figaro they report the profit is due to variation in price between the different transactions. Which seems to be a polite way to say they took exceptional risk. | | |
| ▲ | tonfa 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > In le figaro they report the profit is due to variation in price between the different transactions. Which seems to be a polite way to say they took exceptional risk. Nah it's just regular realized gain (delta between acquisition price and selling price). https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/actualites/resultats-2025-de... (so it's kinda irrelevant, it's just they have to put it in their books) | |
| ▲ | wqaatwt 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They repatriated 129 tonnes in total, its was absolutely impossible to make $15B from that since that’s what 129 tonnes are worth in total more or less. | | |
| ▲ | andyjohnson0 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | They didn't repatriate the gold in the sense of physically moving it from the US to France. Instead, they sold the gold that was held in the US and used the money raised to buy gold from other sources, which is held in France. Different gold, and two financial transactions, accounts for the financial gain. |
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| ▲ | wqaatwt 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well they has 129 tonnes in US which happens to be wroth around $15B or so. Probably the author has no clue what they are talking about and grossly misinterpreted.. |
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| ▲ | eru 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't understand this. Did they increase the overall amount of gold they held? | | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sold it at the peak, and then bought it locally a few months later. | |
| ▲ | rstarast 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | First sell the gold, then buy same amount at a slightly lower price a bit later (on average) | | |
| ▲ | xvedejas 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > the price of gold continued to rise as they did this This would mean they sold low and bought high, right? | | |
| ▲ | DaedalusII 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | price of gold dropped from $5500 to $4600 in the last few weeks then came back. all is possible | | |
| ▲ | mort96 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Then they didn't make money as a result of the price rising, which is what the original commenter and article claimed. |
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| ▲ | renewiltord 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s because they’re using European mathematics. You wouldn’t understand if you’re American. In reality the article is attempting to account for a capital gain pnl accounting for taxes. | |
| ▲ | coldtea 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Usually that's how you want your selling and buying combos to be... |
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| ▲ | berkes 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But the gold price has been rising (on average) a lot over the period July 2025 to January 2026 | | |
| ▲ | tonfa 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | From the annual report, it looks like the headline number (XXB gain) is just because it's realized capital gain (which due to their reporting requirement appears in their annual report, unlike unrealized gains). They have ~same amount of gold between both years and it doesn't look like they took extra market risk. |
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| ▲ | wqaatwt 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Impossible to make anywhere close to that amount since they only sold 129 tonnes |
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| ▲ | kzrdude 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| They sold the existing holdings and bought new of equivalent weight(?), so somehow they ended on profit on those moves. |
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| ▲ | tonfa 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The profit is just realizing the gains (resetting the cost basis for accounting purpose). |
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| ▲ | wodenokoto 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My guess is they buy before selling. An increasing market with a large buy might increase enough to allow for a profitable sell. On top of this, this is physical gold, so location of the gold must play into it as well. |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | chii 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Gold in hand is worth $15B in the bush? |
