Swiss Gold Referendum

It’s now just over one month until the Swiss vote in an historic referendum.  After garnering 100,000 signatures in support, the country will go to a national vote on 30 November on 3 questions:  whether or not the Swiss National Bank (SNB) should increase its gold reserves to 20%, whether the central bank should stop selling its precious metals and whether all its gold should be held within the country.  The Government and its central bank (SNB) are staunchly against it but the citizens are becomingly increasingly disgruntled at the debasement of their currency (now linked to the Euro) and the debt producing stimulus the SNB has engaged in (as with central banks of US, China, Japan, Euro, UK etc etc).  Whilst this is not new news, many gave it little chance of getting up and hence it wasn’t getting much attention.  However the first real poll has found the opposite (see graph below).  The Swiss, of anyone in the western would, are known to love their gold having had the highest gold reserves per capita up to about 10 years ago and an ingrained belief in it as a backing to sound currency maybe this result shouldn’t have surprised.  It’s also a potential protest vote against a world undergoing unprecedented unconventional economic stimulus racking up unsustainable debt with little benefit to the people.  With only 7.8% of its reserves currently accounted for in the 1040 t of gold it holds, taking that to 20% would see them have to buy 1,627 tonne or about $75b worth of gold, or nearly 75% of global production.  We also saw last year what happened when Germany asked for its gold back…um, no.   This will be a very very interesting month ahead…