Gold Repatriation Repercussions

Further to yesterday’s article, 2014 saw 2 more countries (Netherlands and Belgium) join Germany in asking for their gold back, the Swiss voted on same and France’s opposition have called for it too.  Germany first asked the US for about 350t of its gold held in New York back in early 2013 (we explained that here). That year they got a measly 37t and now claim they got 85t last year.  The graph below (released with a 3 month lag) shows withdrawals last year to end of November totalling 166t.  When you subtract the confirmed Dutch withdrawal of 122.5t there must have been 42t removed in December 2014.  Looking at the graph below (showing gold withdrawals from NY) you can note a couple of things.

• First the obvious – with supposedly 6000t of gold why is the US telling Germany they have to wait 7 years to get just 300t back? (and it’s not logistics as suggested as the Swiss managed to export 2,777t in that year of 2013!)
• Note how withdrawals coincide with the big crashes of 2000 and 2008… More importantly, note the withdrawals started BEFORE the actual (mid 2000 and mid 2007) crashes? Does this portend something imminent that central banks know about?