> “A more equal spread of the gold supply between North America, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. also helps to spread the risk.”

They’re not exiting all the gold held in North America; instead they’re rebalancing so that for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk.

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consp 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, but "removing" around half of it from one place is quite a bit. Though I doubt any single physical kg ever moved more than a few meters to the buying countries vault. edit: They physically moved 27 tons, the rest was traded away and bought again in London.

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dmurray 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If they sell enough of it in the US and buy enough in London, traders who take the other side of that position will physically move it to London.

That's exactly the service the commodities markets provide: they will absorb a small trade without anyone incurring the costs of shipping precious metals, and they know who to call to get it shipped once there's enough supply/demand imbalance to make shipping it worthwhile.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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TheRealPomax 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's the fun thing about gold. It's literal gold, not numbers on a spreadsheet. Moving it really means moving it: bars are stamped and owned, and if the owner wants to move them, those bars need to get transported to wherever the owner says they should be.

It's also the idiotic thing about gold, a metal that has no more or less inherent monetary value than a fiat currency =)

	▲	NhanH 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Currency is inherently about trust: you believe it can be traded later for goods. The mechanism with fiat is that you need to trust your state and government. In gold, you trust that everyone is believing gold has value. And that it is commmon knowledge (in the logic sense [0]) Saying that gold has no more or less inherent monetary value than fiat currency assuming a magic wand that can change a large percentage of people's belief. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_knowledge_(logic)
	▲	Isamu 7 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		>inherent monetary value I agree, the price of gold depends on demand like everything else. Although gold just has some inherent utility value in addition to scarcity that makes it less likely for the price to go to zero, other stuff like cryptocurrency have only scarcity and can go to zero much more easily.
	▲	lotsofpulp 14 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That is the non idiotic thing about gold, since it is not fiat, is not easy to produce, and it is easy to verify, it can be used as a currency in less stable times/places. It’s a redundancy. Perhaps bitcoin satisfies many of these properties without the high costs to secure and move gold, but it needs electricity and a network? https://www.macrotrends.net/1335/dollar-vs-gold-comparison-l...

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jbverschoor 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can’t move what isn’t there

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basisword 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US being that 'geopolitical risk'.

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mg794613 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That is what the pamphlet says.

Fact is, it was not a issue before, because of trust.

"for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk." is just nice wording for "Trump is burning down all bridges".

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andsoitis an hour ago | parent [-]

> "for more resilience against a backdrop of increased geopolitical risk." is just nice wording for "Trump is burning down all bridges".

It is more multifaceted than that. To wit: they're leaving a substantial amount still in North America.

America's actions is a big part of it, but it isn't the only reason.

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devin an hour ago | parent [-]

It's a hedge against the risk of the current government. Leaving a bunch here is part of the hedge. It's not as "multifaceted" as you're making it out to be.

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andsoitis an hour ago | parent [-]

Hey, I’m simply echoing what the Dutch government said. I’m taking them at face value since the Dutch are pretty direct.

	▲	skrebbel 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The Dutch are pretty direct but not to Donald Trump, who has a famously thin skin and can cause a huge European crisis with a single tweet. You have to see all European diplomacy through that lens. Everybody’s tiptoeing around the orange idiot’s feelings and meanwhile working hard to make sure we’re never again so dependent on a country that’s so untrustworthy. This gold move is one of the many little steps taken in that direction.