As part of the sanctions against Russia, seven Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT. We start by discussing what SWIFT is, and then the implications of completely cutting Russia out of SWIFT. What is SWIFT and Why Russia is Being Excluded SWIFT – The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a messaging system that links more than 11,000 banks in 200 countries. The system doesn’t move actual money between the banks but...
Read More »As Emerging Market Currencies Collapse, Gold is being Mobilized
In recent weeks, global financial markets have been increasingly spooked by an intensifying crisis in emerging market currencies including those of Turkey and Argentina. Add to this the ongoing currency crisis in Venezuela and the currency problems of Iran. While all of these countries have economy specific reasons that explain at least some of their currency weakness, there are some common themes such as a stronger US...
Read More »Gold’s Price Performance: Beyond the US Dollar
With the first half of 2018 now drawn to a close, much of the financial medias’ headlines and commentary relating to the gold market has been focusing on the fact that the US dollar gold price has moved lower year-to-date. Specifically, from a US dollar price of $1302.50 at close on 31 December 2017, the price of gold in US dollar terms has slipped by approximately 3.8% over the last six months to around $1252.50, a...
Read More »US Gold Reserves, Of Immense Interest to Russia and China
Recently, Russian television network RT extensively quoted me in a series of articles about the US Government’s gold reserves. The RT articles, published on the RT.com website, were based on a series of questions RT put to me about various aspects of the official US gold reserves. These gold reserves are held by the US Treasury, mostly in the custody of the US Mint. The US Mint is a branch of the US Treasury. The first...
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