Metals Market Report Archive
Metals Market Report 02-12-2015

The Mike Fuljenz Metals Market Report

February 2015, Week 2 Edition

Gold rose nearly $100 in January then fell $60 in the first week of February, even though silver and platinum kept rising last week.  Oil moved in the mirror image of gold, falling 18% in January and then rising almost that much in the last week.  Clearly, oil and gold are moving in opposite directions these days.  Gold’s sharpest decline came Friday morning in New York after the positive jobs report was released.  This reaction is based on the assumption that the Fed might raise interest rates sooner rather than later if such good economic news continues, but that assumption is likely mistaken.

Germany Asks: “Is the Gold Really There?”

Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek printed a six-page feature story last week on whether or not the international holdings of gold bullion are really “there” (i.e., in storage at the New York Federal Reserve Bank).  The article was picked up by several other news services, including Economic Times.  The article opens with a profile of a German “gold bug” investigator named Peter Boehringer, who has searched for evidence for several years but can’t get any meaningful answers from central banks about the location of German gold.  He is especially upset that New York has melted down some German bars, erasing their serial numbers.

Due to the ravages of World War II and the dangers of a divided Germany during the Cold War, Germany was thankful to be able to store the majority of its gold in safer havens, mostly in New York, Paris and London.  After the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, Germany has gradually been bringing its gold home.  About 30% Germany’s gold is now back in Frankfurt in the German Bundesbank vaults.  At the end of 2014, however, 45% of German gold was still held in New York, with the rest held in Paris and London. 

Last November 30, the Swiss voters rejected a referendum to repatriate all Swiss gold to the homeland, but in the process of preparing for that vote the Swiss had to disclose the locations and amounts of its national gold holdings for the first time.  The German central bank has now made the same disclosures. On January 19, the Bundesbank said that it repatriated 85 tons from New York in 2014, far more than the five tons in 2013.  With 1447 tons of German gold still buried 80 feet below Manhattan’s street level, it might take another 20 years to bring it all home. Peter Boehringer’s questions are being answered, slowly

The fact that this article consumed six pages in a major national news magazine could be bullish for gold.

Type III Double Eagle Book Desired by Dealers

My new book on Type III Double Eagles, to be released by April 2015, should increase demand for coins in this series. In 2000 my first edition about this popular series received the Numismatic Literary Guild Investment Book of the Year Award further boosting interest in double eagles. There will be some gorgeous photographs and innovative tools in this new edition that should greatly help collectors, investors and dealers who participate in this popular series. At a recent California convention some major dealers asked me for boxes of these books as soon as possible.  



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