European gold imports/exports for March

And now, according to a report by the Swiss Schweiz am Wochenende, the repatriation is complete with the Turkish central bank withdrawing all of its gold reserves from the U.S. due to the "tense political situation." However, in a strange twist, instead of moving the physical gold to Istanbul as the Turkish press reported in April, the Swiss newspaper notes that around 19 tons of Turkish gold is now stored at the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements.

Flows this week

I want to mention that blockchain is also bringing change to gold investment. Consider Royal Mint Gold (RMG), which aims to provide the “performance of the London Gold Market with the transparency of an exchange-traded security.” There’s also the Perth Mint’s InfiniGold, which issues digital certificates guaranteeing ownership of gold and silver in the mint’s vault. A number of other platforms exist to help facilitate gold trading.

Should even one of these become hugely popular, it “could be as big a change to the gold markets as the development of ETFs, but with the added advantage of appealing to younger generations,” according to the World Gold Council’s (WGC) chief strategist, John Reade.

With all that value coming from such a small package, sometimes it is hard to put gold’s immense worth into context.

In his latest book, "The New Case for Gold," fund manager, geopolitical analyst, and financial letter writer James G. Rickards may have summarized the international gold price suppression scheme better than anyone, including GATA itself.

Flows this week

The reason for this concerns the fact that the world is now in a completely fiat-based financial system in which Central Banks can print tens of billions of their currencies at a whim. This opens the door to abject manipulation of Gold prices.

Iran’s gold demand will probably be “strong” for the next few months and then gradually decline as U.S. sanctions start to take effect, according to the researcher who covers the country for Metals Focus Ltd.

After a previous set of sanctions was imposed on Iran in 2012, it took two years for the country’s gold demand to start falling, according to data from the World Gold Council. It sank to only 45.1 tons by 2016, the lowest in at least six years and 65 percent lower than in 2013, according to gold council data. It rose to 64.5 tons last year.

WGC ETF flows