Mark O'Byrne's Blog

Last week Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan has revealed a critical detail about a widely discussed Turkey-Iran gold trade boom, disclosing that the Islamic republic was exporting gas to Turkey in exchange for payment in gold bullion.

CME Group declared a force majeure at one of its New York precious metals depositories yesterday, run by bullion dealer and major coin dealer Manfra, Tordella and Brooks (MTB), due to “operational limitations” posed by Hurricane Sandy.

Gold inched lower on Wednesday despite Greece's lenders being unable to agree on a debt deal, but support for bullion remains due to the very uncertain economic backdrop and global central bank’s loose monetary policy stance.

The Chairman and President of the Shanghai Gold Exchange told the LBMA gathering that the Shanghai Gold Exchange will launch an interbank market early next month that will initially begin with spot contracts and will gradually offer forward contracts.

Gold rose for a third day yesterday after confirmation that President Barack Obama won re- election, while stock markets fell sharply and treasuries headed for the biggest advance in 11 weeks.

After the US Fed’s QE1, (December 2008-March 2010) silver rocketed 53%, almost twice the jump as gold, and for QE2, (ending June 2011) silver rose 24%. Morgan Stanley predicts that silver will again return more than gold after QE3 was announced this September.

Germany’s legislative backing is critical for Draghi’s plan to buy up Spanish and other eurozone area government bonds.

The Bundesbank won't let German parliament members inspect the German gold vaulted abroad because the central bank vaulting facilities supposedly lack "visiting rooms."

Gold edged down on Monday, as pressure from speculators exiting long positions and continued concern about the health of the global economy dampened interest.

The EU must now agree on the structure that makes the ECB (European Central Bank) the main supervisor by January 1st. This new system was created to break the link between banks and governments at the root of the zone’s financial crisis and will roll out in the next year and expect to cover all 6,000 eurozone banks by January 2014.