Posted on

Central Banks Added 77 tons of Gold in September

FindBullionPrices.com

Many of the BRICS countries continue to improve their balance sheets, while switching trade agreements away from the dollar in favor of local currency transactions between nations.

In September 2023, more than 77 tons of gold was bought by various country’s central banks.

With September’s purchases, central banks added a net 337 tons of gold in Q3. It was the second-highest third-quarter total on record behind 2022.

China continued to be the biggest gold purchaser, adding another 26 tons of gold to its hoard in September. It was the 11th straight month of increasing Chinese gold reserves.

Since the beginning of the year, the People’s Bank of China has increased its reserves by at least 181 tons, and it has added 232 tons since it resumed official purchases in November 2022. As of the end of September, China officially held 2,192 tons of gold, making up 4% of its total reserves.

Poland was another big gold buyer in September, adding 19 tons to its reserves. The National Bank of Poland has bought 105 tons of gold this year, following a plan announced in 2021 to add 100 tons to its reserves.

Turkey added 8 tons of gold to its holdings in September and appears to be back on the path toward expanding its reserves.

Central banks, institutional investors, and individual investors all include gold in their holdings for several reasons, many of which are related to gold’s historical and intrinsic qualities as a store of value.

For Central Banks, gold is considered a counterbalance for the paper assets they hold, such as currency reserves and government bonds. It has a history of maintaining its value over the long term, unlike fiat currencies which are subject to inflation.

Gold is a widely accepted asset and can be sold in markets around the world, ensuring that investors can liquidate their holdings if needed.

Similar to central banks, individual investors can use gold to protect against the erosion of purchasing power that comes with inflation.

Gold bars are accessible to a wide range of investors, with various sizes available, from small gram sized bars to larger 1 oz gold bars.

Posted on

Russian Agents Detain Man Smuggling 25 kg of Gold Bars in Luggage

FindBullionPrices.com

Russian authorities have detained a man at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow on suspicion of gold smuggling. Customs officials were alerted about suspicious items and searched inside the man’s luggage.

During the search, officials say they uncovered two recently minted gold bars weighing a combined total of 24.75 kg.

The man has not been identify has not been released by authorities. However, a video circulating on social media shows what appears to be a man in custody in an office with authorities photographing two 400 troy ounce LBMA-style gold bars laying out on a desk.

The gold bars are both stamped with РОССИЯ, the hallmark of the Russian Federation.

The bar in the top part of the frame is hallmarked with the insignia for Novosibirsk Siberia. Novosibirsk is home to the headquarters of a legendary gold refinery and bar manufacturing plant that was built during the USSR period.

The second bar shows the hallmark for Krastsvetmet. Krastsvetmet was established in 1943 during World War II with a focus on platinum group metals.

The gold refinery at Kastsvetmet opened in 1959 but was updated and expanded during the 1990s and is now the largest refiner of newly mined gold in the Russian Federation.

Prior to sanctions being implemented in response to the Ukrainian War, Russia had eight refineries that were listed a Good Delivery providers having LBMA Accreditation

The Russian News service reports that the man faces 3 to 7 years in prison for smuggling.

Posted on

Budget Friendly Fractional Gold Bars

FindBullionPrices.com

Gold is the oldest form of money that is generally recognized everywhere in the world. It is also traded as a futures market commodity and daily trading activity around the world effects the price.

The global trading activity can cause the gold spot price to change every minute around the clock six days per week.

Today’s gold spot price is based on buying a futures contract that contains a 10, 50 or 100 troy ounces of gold. Beyond the price of the metal, there are additional costs that can stack up for fulfillment and delivery.

Some of the gold bars moving out of the COMEX vaults in recent months make their way to both government and private mints for pressing, pouring, machining and casting into smaller and more affordable weight denominations.

Today, there are thousands of available products when shopping for a gold investment. Investors that are considering fractional gold bars have many to choose from.

Fractional gold bars are ones that are minted with a weight of less than 1 troy ounce. In some cases they are measured in fractions of an ounce in increments that are similar to coins, such as 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz and 1/2 oz.

Most of the newly minted gold bullion in the marketplace today are produced by refineries and mints in Europe and Asian where measuring with the metric system is standard. It’s becoming much more common to find gold bars for sale are measured on a gram scale than in fractions of an ounce.

Gold gram bars are an excellent choice to add to your investment stack. They are extremely liquid and easy to convert to fiat if needed. They are also a lot friendly on the wallet than buying a full ounce at time.

And having an assortment of different size gold gram bars may be a practical way to be prepared if you ever need to barter. There are even some options available to buy half gram gold bars from various manufacturers.

When it comes to pricing, smaller gold bars are typically in a price range that is affordable to a wider range of investors. It is also important to remember that smaller bars will frequently have a higher dealer premium than larger sizes.

Less than $100

One Gram Gold Bars

Fractional one gram gold bars are a practical and popular investment option. They are perfect for stacking and can be purchased affordably.

Online bullion dealers offer newly minted 1 gram gold bars in their factory sealed assay card which helps assure that you’re buying an authentic product. Many local coin shops that carry products from Valcambi will often break off gold Combibars into the 1 gram increments. A variety of online dealers do this as well and will sell them as secondary market 1 gram gold bars.

Less than $500

2 Gram Gold Bars & 2.5 gram gold bars

Various refineries manufacture 2 gram bars and 2.5 gram gold bars for investors to capture some savings on the premiums. Both of these sizes are convenient, interesting and unique size denominations.

Sometimes you can find these in the bargain bin at local coin stores as there are only a few refineries making newly minted bars in these sizes.

5 gram gold bars

Five gram gold bars offer a significant savings in premiums over smaller sizes. You will find that premiums will be lower on Random 5 gram gold bar than smaller size fractional gold bars.

Newly minted bars are manufactured by notable private mints such as PAMP Suisse and Valcambi. There are also various 5 gram gold bars that are backed by government mints such as Perth and the Royal Mint.

Less than $1,000

10 gram gold bars

The next option for those with a slightly higher budget is the 10 gram gold bar. These bars contain .3215 troy ounces of gold, just slightly less than 1/3 of an ounce.

The denseness of these bars can be felt in your hand. Newly minted bar will come sealed in a sealed plastic assay card holder, while secondary market 10 gram gold bars will most likely be shipped in a plastic coin flip.

Posted on

NY Federal reserve launches CBDC “trial” on the heels of FTX collapse

FindBullionPrices.com
central bank digital currency

Several weeks ago, the New York Federal Reserve quietly launched a 12 week long trial of a CBDC “digital dollar” pilot program in partnership with global banking giants like Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Mastercard Inc and Wells Fargo & Co.

The NYFR describes the project as an attempt to test the feasibility of using blockchain tokens and distributed ledger technology as a mechanism for settlement of liabilities.

This is one of many software and technology projects that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been developing through their New York Innovation Center.

The Biden administration has been attempting to take control over the digital assets markets through a combination of Executive Orders and enforcement with the hiring of 70,000 new IRS agents.

On March 9, 2022, Biden signed Executive Order 14143, titled “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets”.

Government agencies have been funding research projects at private institutions aimed at implementing a fully programmable digital currency such as those endorsed by the G7 and World Economic Forum (WEF).

What is the Federal Reserve New York Innovation Center?
The Federal Reserve Innovation Center is a group within the bank who’s mission is to collaborate on technology research, experimentation and prototyping with banking regulators, the banking industry, academia and international central banks, the Federal Reserve System, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, academia, and the private sector through technical research, experimentation, and prototyping.

The team is chartered to generated insights into high-value central bank-related opportunities, enabling stakeholders and the central bank community to enhance the functioning of the global financial system.

Much of the G7 are following recommendations for CBDC systems endorsed by the WEF that are designed to be centrally controllable and programmable which is the opposite of having a decentralized blockchain.

Back in 2019, the General Manager of the International Bank of Settlements openly spoke about their intent to use CBDC to control which products citizens will be allowed to spend their digital dollars.

The Federal Reserve New York Innovation Center is likely following suggestions endorsed and suggested by the WEF, IBS, G7 and other organizations that have no absolutely no legal authority over the US economy or any other economy.

According to data provided by CBDCTracker.org, more than 60 countries are currently researching or launching pilot programs using CDBC blockchain ledger technology.

Many of the political rank and file in Congress reportedly received donations from FTX and affiliated crypto organizations in the run up to the mid-term elections.


Republicans in Congress have already announced their intent to hold hearings on the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange and into influence peddling by the White House.

In the current bankruptcy petition, the company discloses that it owes its top 50 creditors a total of $3.1 billion dollars but has yet to publicly disclose the list of names.

Shortly after signing EO 14143, former US President Bill Clinton and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair were both guest speakers at the Crypto Bahamas Conference.


Private Gold Ownership in the United States

During the pandemic the US Mint sold more ounces of gold, silver and platinum coins than ever before.

As a result of the pandemic, private ownership of gold and silver is now the highest it has been since Roosevelt confiscated gold in 1933.

Looking at only cumulative bullion sales of the American Gold Eagle coin series, the US Mint has sold roughly 45.5 million troy ounces of gold eagles from 1986 until 2021.

So far in 2022, it’s reported that the US Mint has sold roughly 976,000 ounces of gold coins as of November.

There have been a variety of problems reported by the US Mint in recent years related to supply chain and planchets that have effected the production of both Gold and Silver bullion coins.

Many investors have been fleeing from the stock and crypto markets due to ongoing inflation, mass layoffs, rising interest rates and fears of a recession or worse. Millions of Americans continue to lose faith in the US economy as millions face layoffs the war in Ukraine drags on without any end in sight.

Buyers demand low premiums on gold and silver. Investors, preppers and many every day Americans continue to search for a safe haven investment as some lobby for a return to a gold-standard economy.

As of March 5 2021, the US Mint stores 147.3 million troy ounces of gold at Fort Knox, down from the highest highest historic gold holdings of 649.6 million ounces in December 31, 1941.

According to the US Mint more than 512.3 million troy ounces of gold has been removed from the Fort Knox Gold Repository since 1941.

According to weekly published reports by the Federal Reserve, roughly 20 million troy ounces is stored in the New York Federal Reserve system.

Monthly Gold Report data provided by the Department of Treasury shows 261,498,926.2 million troy ounces in their inventory, with roughly 147.6 million ounces being held in Fort Knox, 43.8 million in Denver, CO and 54.0 million in West Point, NY. The DoT reports gold holdings at the Federal Reserve to be around 13.5 million ounces.

Between 1941 and 2022, the Department of Treasury seems to have a discrepancy of roughly 388 million troy ounces of gold.

Maybe someone should be asking where did all the gold that was removed from Fort Knox go?

Blockchain Backed Gold Ownership

Many central banks that increased their gold holdings during the pandemic, including Russia, China and other BRICS nations are experimenting with blockchain technology and how it may be able to help their economy.

Bitcoin and other decentralized blockchain technologies are a perfect use case to establish trust amongst sovereign central banks and in developing and emerging nations to validate their gold, other precious metals and minerals holdings to allow for fair participation in world trade and wealth building.

The first mined Bitcoin’s Genesis block contains an encrypted message attached to the blockchain that reads, “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” 

Cryptocurrency technology was created in response to the crash of the financial markets in 2008.

The purpose behind the bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain movements have evolved over the last decade.

Most importantly, these technologies can enable trust for the banking and financial system that has been plagued by corruption and mistrust since Roosevelt helped the bankers at the Federal Reserve steal the gold from the American public in 1933.

Posted on

Central Banks Continue to Buy Gold throughout 2021

FindBullionPrices.com
Central Banks Continue to Buy Gold

Last year was a banner year for Central Banks wanting to buy gold bars and silver.

Recent reports from the Reserve Bank of India and other countries have shown that gold and silver continue to be a safe haven store of wealth in times of rising inflation.

The central bank’s gold reserves jumped from 668.25 tons to 743.84 tons in September 2021. That’s the largest purchase that has been reported by the Indian central bank since 2009. This increases the bank’s gold portfolio by more than 11% compared to a RBI report from September 2020.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also purchased 118 tons of silver in 2020 and 2021.

Economists believe that RBI is solidifying its portfolio by increasing its gold and silver inventory during a time when inflation is affecting all major fiat currencies worldwide. Buying gold has been a trend in central banks worldwide in recent years as economies continue to recover from shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The central banks of Thailand, Brazil, Singapore and Russia also reported large gold purchases in 2021.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore registered 26 tons of gold was bought by their central bank between May and June.

With economic outlooks from the Federal Reserve bleak, showing that inflation has continued to burden the US Economy, regulators are anticipating multiple interest rate increases from the Fed in the coming months as an attempt to reign in the rapidly increasing prices of basic necessities.

Recent economic reports released from the US Government show that consumer spending at levels needed to sustain the economic recovery.

However, with rampant inflation driving prices of everyday items to higher prices, the day to day frustration most American’s feel at the grocery store and gas pump has pushed the Biden administration approval ratings to new lows. Many central banks are also preparing for the future.

Many countries are looking towards cryptocurrencies as a way to help facilitate trade, with China pushing other countries including the United States to adapt as a way to prevent future supply chain disruptions.

Posted on

New Products Added – Now Tracking Platinum Coins

FindBullionPrices.com

Platinum 1 oz coins have been seeing an increase in investor demand. We recently began tracking the prices of platinum 1 oz coins across major online trusted and reputable bullion dealers.

So far, we have begun tracking prices on the following platinum coins:

In the coming weeks we will be adding more 1 oz Platinum Coins, 1 oz Platinum Bars as well as fractional platinum coins.

We have also added some new silver products to our price tracking, including:

We have also begun tracking dealer prices for those looking to buy 10 oz PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna 24k Gold Bars.

Posted on

How can you buy gold at spot price?

FindBullionPrices.com

Investors and collectors are always looking for a great price on gold coins and bars. It’s understandable that everyone wants to pay the lowest price possible when buying precious metals. The lower price you pay the higher potential return on your investment that you can get. It’s difficult to buy gold at spot price but not impossible.

What is gold spot price?

The gold spot price is the current commodities market price at which gold is bought or sold for immediate payment and delivery. It is what you would pay “on-the-spot” as opposed to some date in the future. In theory, you could pay spot price, or below spot price if you were to buy raw gold before it was minted into a bar or coin.

The gold spot price refers to the price of one troy ounce. It is often quoted in U.S. dollars. The troy ounce is a standard unit of measurement use for precious metals. One troy ounce is defined as exactly 31.1034768 grams (1.097142857143 oz.), but gold prices are often listed as $/oz.

Gold spot prices can be driven by a host of factors such as market speculation, demand for gold, fluctuations in gold futures (paper contracts), currency values, current events (political stability), gold supply (mining), and gold demand (manufacturing and investor).

Gold spot prices are updated every minute as long as one of the markets around the world is open and trading. The most influential global markets are in New York, Chicago, London, Zurich, China, and Hong Kong.

Gold spot price does not take into account any other costs that may be essential to the design, manufacture, transportation, purchase or sale of a precious metal. Those additional costs may including things like packaging, shipping, handling, or insurance. They also don’t factor in the rarity of certain gold products, coins or potential numismatic value.

Expecting to buy a gold coin or bar at the spot price of gold is like expecting to buy a car for the price of the materials. Other factors impact the price of the finished product such as the design and labor, the cost of transporting raw materials and finished products, location, taxes, profit margin, etc.

How are spot prices used?

Companies use gold spot prices to help guide product pricing. However, gold coins, bars, and bullion can sell for varying amounts over spot price due to numerous factors previously mentioned. Additionally, gold coins have other factors that effect the price such as mintage, product types, and rarity on top of the spot price of gold.

Bullion dealers use gold spot price as the basis for pricing many of their products. Dealers price Gold coins, bars and rounds with a premium over gold spot price.

Where can you buy gold at spot price?

While rare, the opportunity to buy gold at spot price does exists. Several online bullion dealers offer 1 oz gold bar for sale at spot price as a special offer for new customers. This is intended as a loss leader for the bullion dealers to acquire new customers.

There are other ways to buy gold at close to spot price, including some that allow you to buy gold below spot price after factoring in various discounts, cash back and rebates.

Choose the type of gold products that will meet your goals

With such a variety of gold bullion products available it can be difficult to decide which products will help you reach your investment or store of wealth goals.

Today’s market is flooded with gold bullion coins from sovereign government mints from around the world and private mints. The market also has a flood of vintage gold bullion coins that were in circulation at a time when economies were based on the gold standard.

Two very important factors to consider include how long you intend to hold on to your gold bullion investment and your intended buyer when you decide to sell down the road.

If transferring cash holdings into another form of legal tender, buying Pre-1933 US Gold Coins, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coins or American Gold Eagle Coins may be the most practical for you. There are plenty of other vintage gold bullion coin options available that don’t have a current legal tender status, that are just as highly recognized world-wide. These vintage gold bullion coins are easy to sell, such as Gold Franc Coins of the Latin Monetary Union (LMU), Gold Sovereigns from Great Britain, and Gold Peso coins from Mexico.

Keep track of the Gold Spot Price

The gold spot price changes everyday based on the market factors mentioned above. It’s important to keep an eye on rising or falling gold spot prices to identify opportunities to buy and sell to capture profits if that is one of your goals.

Compare Gold Bullion Prices

Once you’ve identified your investment goals and the types of gold bullion products that are important to you, then it’s time to comparison shop across the large number of online bullion dealers.

There are a number of trusted and reputable online bullion dealers. Each dealer prices gold bullion products based on their individual business models. Accordingly, the premiums each dealer charges for the same product can vary dramatically.

Almost every online bullion dealer will carry a core set of common products such as American Gold Eagles, Canadian Gold Maple Leafs, South African Gold Krugerrands, and other sovereign government bullion. You can use FindBullionPrices.com to find the best prices on the gold bullion items you want to buy.

 

Posted on

Buy Gold Bars on Sale from Money Metals Exchange

FindBullionPrices.com
1 gram gold bars

Money Metals Exchange has special pricing on fractional 24k gold bars. With dealer premiums low now is a great time to buy gold bars, both for yourself or as a holiday gift for the people in your life.

Their gold bars are currently priced at some of the lowest premiums over gold spot price.

  • 1 Gram Gold Bars – From Random Manufacturers, Sealed in Mint Assay Packaging for around $48.
  • 2.5 Gram Gold Bars – In Mint Sealed Assay Card, Random Manufacturers, less than $110
  • 5 Gram Gold Bars – Pure 24k .999 Fine Gold, Random Mints in Sealed Assay Cards for around $215
  • 10 Gram Gold Bars – Sealed in Mint Assay Cards from Random Manufacturers based on availability, priced around $419, under $42 a gram

Combine the purchase of some fractional gold bars with their Silver Starter Kit for around $66 or with any items from their Holiday Gift Guide to receive free shipping on the entire order. A Victorinox Swiss Army Pocket Knife with 1 gram PAMP Suisse gold bar inlay makes a great holiday gift for any bullion investor.

These low premiums on fractional gold bars are not going to last long. When you buy gold bars you are investing in an asset that is meant to preserve wealth.