We use cookies (including third-party cookies such as Google) to remember your site preferences and to help us understand how visitors use our sites so we can improve them. To learn more, please see our privacy policy and our cookie policy.

To agree to our use of cookies, click 'Accept' or choose 'Options' to set your preferences by cookie type.

Options Accept
BullionVault

CHARTS

  • English
  • Deutsch
  • Español
  • Français
  • Italiano
  • Polski
  • 日本語
  • 简体中文
  • 繁體中文
  • Daily audit
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Deposit
  • Login
  • Open account
  • ABOUT US
    • About BullionVault
    • In the press
    • Reviews
    BUY/SELL BULLION
    • Vaulted gold & silver
    • -Live order board
    • -Daily Price
    • Coins for delivery (UK)
    INVESTMENT GUIDE
    • Guide to gold
    • -How to buy gold
    • -Gold investment
    • -Gold investment plan
    • -Investment insurance
    • -Compare asset performance
    • Guide to silver
    • -How to buy silver
    • Guide to platinum
    • -How to buy platinum
    GOLD NEWS
    • Gold news front page
    • -Gold price news
    • -Opinion & analysis
    • -Market fundamentals
    • -Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • -Infographics
    CHARTS
    • Gold price
    • Silver price
    • Platinum price
    • Price alerts
  • Login
  • Open account
  • BUY/SELL BULLION
  • Vaulted gold & silver
    • ⤷
    • Live order board
    • Daily Price
  • Coins for delivery (UK)
  • INVESTMENT GUIDE
  • Guide to gold
    • ⤷
    • How to buy gold
    • Gold investment
    • Gold investment plan
    • Investment insurance
    • Compare asset performance
  • Guide to silver
    • ⤷
    • How to buy silver
  • Guide to platinum
    • ⤷
    • How to buy platinum
  • GOLD NEWS
  • Gold news front page
    • ⤷
    • Gold price news
    • Opinion & analysis
    • Market fundamentals
    • Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • Infographics
  • CHARTS
  • Gold price
  • Silver price
  • Platinum price
  • Price alerts
  • ABOUT US
  • About BullionVault
  • In the press
  • Reviews
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Daily audit
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Español
    • Français
    • Italiano
    • Polski
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文

Gold News

Live support

NEED HELP? ASK US NOW

Search form

Gold News front page

Gold Price News

Gold Prices Fall with Real Interest Rates as US Fed Risks 'Taper Tantrum' and 'Inflation Freak Out' in Bonds

More...

Gold Investing In Depth

Learn about gold bullion bars

Learn about gold bullion coins (and costs)

Gold investment: Why & how?

Gold Investment Analysis

  • Latest Gold Investor Index
  • Diversification: Gold as investment insurance
  • 40-year Asset Performance Comparison Table

Gold Articles

Opinion & Analysis

Gold Price News

Investment News

Gold in History

Gold Books

Gold Investor Index

Gold Infographics

Archive

  • January 2021 (19)
  • December 2020 (24)
  • November 2020 (23)
  • October 2020 (25)
  • September 2020 (25)
More...

List of authors

ETF Investors Shun Gold But Central Banks Buy as Romania Repatriates, China Eases

Wednesday, 4/24/2019 14:14
BUY GOLD prices rallied $5 per ounce from yesterday's new 4-month low in US Dollar terms on Wednesday, and held little changed from Easter weekend's level for UK and Euro investors as global stock markets slipped with major government bond yields.
 
The Lower House of Parliament in Romania – currently president nation of the 28-member European Union – voted 165-to-90 in favor of the gold reserves 'repatriation' plan put forward by members of the ruling PSD Party.
 
Widely seen as part of the PSD's battle for control of the legally independent Banca Naţională a României (BNR), the draft law seeks to keep 95% of Romania's 103-tonnes bullion bar reserves in Bucharest, with the other 5% only allowed abroad if it is lent out to generate income.
 
Setting a half-century record in 2018, central-bank gold buying worldwide "could reach 700 tonnes" this year, says Bloomberg today, quoting analysis from US financial giant Citigroup (NYSE: C).
 
"Central banks tend to increase gold reserves when the global macroeconomic environment is uncertain,” the news-wire also quotes Howie Lee, economist at OCBC in Singapore (SGX: O39), noting that "one of the biggest buyers of gold in recent months was China, [now] in the midst of trade tensions with the US, and...seeking to diversify its trillions of Dollar reserves."
 
"There is growing evidence that central banks are tilting their asset reserve mix into bullion and away from the USD," agrees a note from Canadian brokerage T.D.Securities, also noting how "central bankers around the world may again need to follow a nonconventional monetary policy path when the economy heads south...[giving] additional fodder for the view that private asset allocations would follow the official sector in increasing the weighting of hedge assets like gold in their portfolios."
 
But gold investing among private fund managers has eased back in contrast as prices have fallen this month, with the giant SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca: GLD) shrinking by another 0.3% yesterday, taking its net liquidation since late-January's 7-month peak to nearly one-tenth.
 
Tuesday's investor outflow pulled the quantity of gold needed to back the GLD's shares down below 750 tonnes for the first time in 6 months.
 
The GLD has now seen investors liquidate stock on 11 of the 16 trading days so far in April, the heaviest stretch since gold prices peaked and fell back from 10-month highs near $1350 in mid-February.
Chart of the GLD gold ETF's gold backing in tonnes. Source: BullionVault
 
"Many in the market are dismayed and ponder what it will take to move gold past $1350 in a meaningful way, if a dovish Fed can't do the job," T.D.Securities goes on.
 
After un-named "policy insiders" said Tuesday that the People's Bank of China will slow the pace of its monetary easing, the PBOC today lent almost $40bn to commercial banks in a bid to boost lending to what the Reuters news agency calls "struggling" smaller businesses.
 
Shanghai gold prices fell overnight to 1-week lows, just above the cheapest Yuan level since mid-December, even as the Chinese currency slipped to its weakest against the Dollar so far this month.
 
That clipped the premium for bullion landed in China – gold's No.1 consumer nation – below $18 per ounce versus London quotes, still twice the typical incentive offered to new imports.
 
Shares in Belgian refining, recycling and precious-metal technology specialists Umicore (EBI: UMI) meantime fell another €1.30 on Wednesday to €34.50 after losing €7.50 on yesterday's warning that weak demand for electric vehicles in China is hurting the outlook for battery sales.
 
The wider auto market looks "weak" in both China and the US, says a note from analysts Metals Focus, but tighter rules on engine emissions in China and India should stabilize or even boost demand for platinum to use in diesel autocatalysts according to refining and technology specialists Johnson Matthey (LON: JMAT).
 
Back in Bucharest, the Chamber of Deputies also today approved the Government's changes to Romania's criminal code, reducing penalties for abusing public office, limiting press freedoms to report on corruption trials, and setting a 1-year time limit for accusing a public official of a crime.
 
"After a year has passed, the person who denounces can also be punished," reports Bursa.ro online.
 
De facto leader Liviu Dragnea, head of the PSD but barred from taking the job of Prime Minister by an on-going court case over corruption, last week vowed to give farming households in Romania's poorer northern and eastern regions a grant worth over $4,500 each – a move set to worsen the country's national deficit, already set to bust EU rules capping the gap between spending and revenues at 3% of annual economic output.
  • Reddit logo
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
  • Google logo
  • Yahoo logo
  • LinkedIn logo
  • Digg logo
  • StumbleUpon logo
  • Technorati logo

Adrian Ash is director of research at BullionVault, the physical gold and silver market for private investors online. Formerly head of editorial at London's top publisher of private-investment advice, he was City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning from 2003 to 2008, and is now a regular contributor to many leading analysis sites including Forbes and a regular guest on BBC national and international radio and television news. Adrian's views on the gold market have been sought by the Financial Times and Economist magazine in London; CNBC, Bloomberg and TheStreet.com in New York; Germany's Der Stern; Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore, and many other respected finance publications.

See the full archive of Adrian Ash articles on GoldNews.

Please Note: All articles published here are to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it. Please review our Terms & Conditions for accessing Gold News.

Follow Us

Facebook Youtube Twitter LinkedIn

 

Mobile apps

 - live trading 24/7

 - buy & sell instantly

 - up-to-the-second charts

 

 

 

Daily news email
Go to 'communications settings' 

Get the latest daily gold price news free by email

Latest gold news by email

 

 

 

Gold Investor Index
5 January 2020

Gold Investor Index

Gold investing +58% in NY21

 

 

 

LBMA webinar
21 January 2021

LBMA

London gold trading

 

 

 

International
Investment

16 December 2020

Gold 2021

Gold in 2021

 

 

 

LBMA Alchemist
1 December 2020

Newton

True Gold/Silver Ratio

 

 

 

  •  Email us

Market Fundamentals

  • 'Cut Bullion Duty to Cut Smuggling': India's Gold Industry
  • Platinum Price Hits 4-Year High Even as Electric Beats Diesel Cars in Europe
  • Record Investing Pushes 'Industrial' Silver and Platinum into Deep Deficits
More...
  • Cost calculator
  • Cookies
  • Terms & conditions

©BullionVault Ltd 2005-

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Save your cookie preferences

We use cookies to remember your site preferences, record your referrer and improve the performance of our site. For more information, see our cookie policy.

Please select an option below and 'Save' your preferences.

Save

You can update your cookie preferences at any time from the 'Cookies' link in the footer.

Secure auto-logout warning

You have not been active for some time.

For your security you will be logged out in   minutes unless you take action.