The Bank of England’s latest physical gold holdings for January month-end 2017 is only in the region of 5100 tonnes of gold bars. Furthermore, since the LBMA say that there are only about 6500 tonnes of gold in the entire London market, the LBMA commercial gold vaults in London have to hold far less gold than the Bank of England. Add to this the fact that the gold in the commercial vaults is mostly held on behalf of gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

Given the above, it becomes increasingly clear than when the LBMA does decide to release gold vault holdings figures sometime in summer 2017, whatever figure(s) is released, will most likely confirm that there is very little gold in the London market which is not claimed to be owned by either a central bank or a gold-backed ETF. It will also provide a field day for all sorts of theories and calculations about the true ratio of gold trading volumes to gold bar vault holdings, and how much of this gold is allocated and earmarked, and how much can be considered a combined bullions banks’ float.