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France pulls last gold held in US
- carefree-bob 7mo agoGood for France to relocate gold back to their own territory, but, uh, how can this result in a 15 B gain? "The overall size of France’s gold reserves still remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes, which are now entirely held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine." Is this some special form of French accounting, where the gold becomes more valuable when it returns to French soil?
- kzrdude 7mo agoThey sold the existing holdings and bought new of equivalent weight(?), so somehow they ended on profit on those moves.
- tonfa 6mo agoThe profit is just realizing the gains (resetting the cost basis for accounting purpose).
- somenameforme 7mo agoOver about a year they sold their 'non-standard' (seems to be bars below the modern purity standards) US reserves, and replaced them with new reserves purchased elsewhere which are now stored in France. As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, they ended up making a bunch of dinero while also centralizing their reserves.
- eru 7mo agoI don't understand this. Did they increase the overall amount of gold they held?
- KaiserPro 7mo agoSold it at the peak, and then bought it locally a few months later.
- rstarast 7mo agoFirst sell the gold, then buy same amount at a slightly lower price a bit later (on average)
- xvedejas 6mo ago> the price of gold continued to rise as they did this This would mean they sold low and bought high, right?
- renewiltord 6mo agoIt’s because they’re using European mathematics. You wouldn’t understand if you’re American. In reality the article is attempting to account for a capital gain pnl accounting for taxes.
- eru 6mo agoI'm not sure the central bank is paying capital gains taxes?
- DaedalusII 6mo agoprice of gold dropped from $5500 to $4600 in the last few weeks then came back. all is possible
- mort96 6mo agoThen they didn't make money as a result of the price rising, which is what the original commenter and article claimed.
- coldtea 6mo agoUsually that's how you want your selling and buying combos to be...
- berkes 6mo ago> As the price of gold continued to rise as they did this, Seems counterintuitive to me. This would only make gains when they bought the new gold before selling the old, or when there's some arbitrage going on between Gold/USD, Gold/EUR and USD/EUR. If they first sold the old for USD, then bought the new for USD, with a rising gold price, they'd miss the price-gain during the time between the trades, when they held the USD. It'd be a loss, not a gain. If there's some arbitrage going on, then I highly doubt that brings $15B gain. The differences would have to be huge. I think the (author (AI)) writing that article is simply mixing up stuff. I think this gain is not a cause-effect of the conversion, merely the gains from rising gold prices on the gold it holds over that period.
- tux3 6mo agoThe source is a press conference where they state the total amount and total value of gold stored hasn't changed. In le figaro they report the profit is due to variation in price between the different transactions. Which seems to be a polite way to say they took exceptional risk.
- wqaatwt 6mo agoThey repatriated 129 tonnes in total, its was absolutely impossible to make $15B from that since that’s what 129 tonnes are worth in total more or less.
- andyjohnson0 6mo agoThey didn't repatriate the gold in the sense of physically moving it from the US to France. Instead, they sold the gold that was held in the US and used the money raised to buy gold from other sources, which is held in France. Different gold, and two financial transactions, accounts for the financial gain.
- wqaatwt 6mo agoYes but the article implies that they somehow made 15B in profit by selling the gold in US and buying an equivalent amount which can’t be the case.
- carefree-bob 6mo agoThe French gold originally deposited by France in US reserves in the 1950s was of the exact same purity as the French gold now, what is meant by "non-standard" just means "not stored in France". If it was a lower purity, then when they sold the 129 tons, they would not have obtained 129 tons of "higher purity" gold and still turned a profit. They would have gotten fewer tons of gold. Your logic has the wrong sign. Also, the fact that gold prices are rising means when France sold the gold and then purchased it later, the higher price to obtain the same quantity of gold would mean they incurred a loss, not a profit. Here, too, your sign is wrong. Finally, at current prices, 129 tons of gold is worth $19 Billion dollars in total. It seems hard to believe that short term price declines (which is what is needed to turn a profit) would be such that gold fell over 80% in value, which is what would be needed to sell 129 tons of gold, then wait a while and buy 129 tons of gold, and end up with a profit equal to over 80% of the price of gold in question. Moreover, rising gold prices would cause the French to earn a loss, not a profit
- stackbutterflow 7mo agoIt's gold only if it comes from the Dore région of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling metal.
- sph 6mo agoThat accent somehow migrated two characters too far.
- stavros 6mo agoNah that's how it's spelled in French.
- sph 6mo agoTrue, but ‘Doré’ means golden, and would make for a better joke.
- pyrale 6mo agoOn the other hand, Dore is an actual toponym. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monts_Dore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monts_Dore
- rkomorn 6mo agoThe French part in that sentence should be the name of the region (eg Doré(e) ), not "région", and if you wanted to use the French spelling of "région", you'd have to say "région Dore". Using the French spelling of région but the wrong word order doesn't make sense.
- chii 7mo agoGold in hand is worth $15B in the bush?
- wodenokoto 6mo agoMy guess is they buy before selling. An increasing market with a large buy might increase enough to allow for a profitable sell. On top of this, this is physical gold, so location of the gold must play into it as well.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- BrtByte 6mo agoCentral banks often hold gold on their books at very old prices
- omcnoe 6mo agoIt’s a paper gain created by mark to book accounting treatment of central bank goal reserves. Not a real economic gain. The US could re-create the same “gain” by selling and repurchasing their gold. Fundamentally doesn’t really matter.
- fenykep 7mo agoSite doesn't load for me. https://archive.is/ePH8u https://archive.is/ePH8u
- aucisson_masque 7mo agoNot done for political reasons.
- oyebenny 7mo agoWhat makes you say that?
- Ecco 7mo agoReading the article is what made him say that.
- berkes 7mo ago> BdF Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau said the decision to keep the new bars in Paris is “not politically motivated,” as the higher-standard gold bars it bought were traded on a European market.
- wqaatwt 7mo agoWell they are probably just being diplomatic, there is no point in accidentally triggering the ape.
- avadodin 6mo ago"We do not do this as a political statement —we simply want our gold ingots to exist next week." Still, a win does signal a dumb process behind the trade as the smart move would be to hedge with future options and/or futures. But then again, maybe they did hedge the trade and it's just not the right time or place to report it.
- tonfa 6mo agoTo be fair, it's an ongoing process started in 2005 and which should finish in 2028. I doubt there was much political (tho the whole tariffs stuff probably made their job/decision easier when the gold price started diverging between NY and European markets). At this point it was cheaper than flying the gold to CH for recasting. (1784 tons moved to standardized holding over the years, 134 tons are now left to convert -- all stored in Paris)
- rstarast 6mo agoThis seems to be the source article (Reuters, March 24): https://www.reuters.com/business/french-central-bank-books-15-billion-gain-gold-reserve-upgrade-2026-03-24/ https://www.reuters.com/business/french-central-bank-books-1...
- cladopa 6mo agoThis is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process. The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything. In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, blackmailing France to do nothing. You gain custody of what is yours.
- 0dayman 6mo agowhich can be the difference between losing that entire amount or gaining it, and in this situation with this America, this is a big win if they manage to get it back in fact, if it hasn't been stolen or sold already
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6mo agoFrom the full press release: "In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025." -- the keyword here likely being "realized"
- mort96 6mo agoIs the logic that it's "unrealised" while the gold is stored in the US but becomes "realised" once it is stored in Paris? Why?
- PaywallBuster 6mo agoYou bought it once at X price, it's realized when you sell it, it's unrealized while "open" If they held it for 100 years and finally sold it, then profit/loss is realized now
- mort96 6mo ago
- picsao 6mo ago[dead]
- renewiltord 6mo ago[flagged]
- tonfa 6mo agoOn that topic, video about the underground vault: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txyKenOq5Pw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txyKenOq5Pw
- dbdr 6mo agoThanks for sharing this little hidden gem!
- wolvoleo 6mo agoWe in Holland should do the same but our government (especially the right wing VVD) adores the US so they never bothered :(
- Avalaxy 6mo agoThe netherlands as a whole should do this. Not just holland.
- wolvoleo 6mo agoOh yes that's what I mean. I don't like calling it the Netherlands.
- ur-whale 6mo ago> Oh yes that's what I mean. I don't like calling it the Netherlands. it was tongue-in-cheek dude. literal people are a hoot.
- wolvoleo 6mo agoTrue everyone loves hooters :3
- ezst 6mo agoWhy not?
- ezequiel-garzon 6mo agoI'm curious about this too. I thought saying "we in Holland" was equivalent to "we in England" rather than "we in the UK". Is it acceptable in the Netherlands? (Or maybe just in Holland proper?)
- wolvoleo 6mo agoOh there's just some stupid 'rebranding' going on. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-49921029 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-49921029 As I hate our government I don't play by their rules. Besides, Holland is shorter and easier to pronounce.
- codethief 6mo agoIs anyone here actually reading the article? Yes, they really made a gain of $15B: > But instead of refining and transporting the gold, it opted to sell the bars and purchase new bullion in Europe. […] Due to rising gold prices, the move helped the bank to generate a capital gain of 13 billion euros ($15 billion),
- BrtByte 6mo agoI think the confusion is that both statements can be true depending on what you mean by "gain"
- mort96 6mo agoThis doesn't make sense. If they first sold the bars held in the US, then the gold prices rose, then they bought gold in Europe, how the hell did that amount to a capital gain of $15b? How exactly do prices rising over the course of the process lead to these $15b?
- huhtenberg 6mo agoGold is down 10+% since its recent peak. They likely sold then and repurchased later.
- mort96 6mo agoThen they made money thanks to gold prices fluctuating, not thanks to gold prices rising? And how does a 10% market shift lead to gaining $15b, roughly the value of 100 tons of gold, from the sale and re-purchase of 129 tons of gold? This math ain't mathing.
- danparsonson 6mo agoOther costs? Deviations in the actual figures from the estimates we're using here? 100 is not a million miles away from 129.
- defrost 6mo ago
- KingOfCoders 6mo agoGermany also needs to pull all gold. We have 1236t there.
- zelphirkalt 6mo agoWould be good to not depend on the US that much any longer, since they have proven to be such an unreliable "partner". Even in a non-Trump future one cannot rely upon some future election not resulting in some similar disaster. Better to pull out, before some hothead gets weird ideas about that gold.
- vasco 6mo agoMaybe the fact that US soldiers and military bases exist inside Germany's borders is slightly more important than where the gold is. First regain your sovereignty, I'd say.
- samus 6mo agoThe USA is threatening to pull out of NATO anyway, so those might go away.
- praptak 6mo agoNothing wrong with going for the low hanging fruit first.
- zelphirkalt 6mo agoI am guessing that these bases are one of the last things to go. Would be a major diplomatic incident. But then again Trump creates those for breakfast, so who knows when we finally have had enough.
- KingOfCoders 6mo agoYes, close Ramstein and close Landstuhl, which were used for every US war in the Middle East in the last 30 years.
- Havoc 6mo ago
- fasdfplasjk5425 6mo agoLooks like we're at the beginning of FBRICS
- praptak 6mo agoEUBRICS, but it also includes Canada but not Russia and it's really more like "sane countries readjusting their politics against a mad ape".
- shevy-java 6mo agoConsidering how Project2025 declared Europeans as enemy, it really is time to focus on more reliable partners than the current (and most likely future) USA version. Trump is a war-president - when he babbles about what Project2025 tells him to say, he stumbles over his own lies increasingly so, most likely because his brain no longer works that well. The recent "we can not extend health care and social care because we must wage wars" was kind of a slip-up of the real agenda - not that this is a real secret either, but even folks who voted for Trump thinking he cares about him (as if billionaires care about other people ever), should now realise the path the USA has decided to walk. ICE shooting down US citizens also show this - you protest, you get shot.
- enoint 6mo agoIt has more to do with Putin than any of that. Trump says he and Putin “went through a hell of a lot” together. Values inverted at last year’s Munich security conference, and the US advised Europe to just lay back and take it. Then, Greenland.
- RobotToaster 6mo agoAt least they got their gold this time. The last time they asked for their gold back Nixon "temporarily" ended the convertibility of the USD to gold.
- kccqzy 6mo agoIt’s exactly the opposite. Last time France was trying to exchange USD to gold. This time France was selling gold presumably exchanging gold to USD in New York.
- Alexzoofficial 6mo ago[dead]
- PowerElectronix 6mo agoI doubt the claim, honestly. Such an institution would never buy and sell to trade the market, they probably never stopped being exposed to gold by buying and selling simultaneously and the 15b is the realized gain of the sold gold, which is only in paper as they still hold the gold.
- ur-whale 6mo ago> Such an institution would never buy and sell to trade the market This is not what they're doing. They're just re-asserting their sovereignty over their property, a smart move in the current geopolitical climate. I'm actually surprised the utter dumbass they have at the helm over there managed to cook up such a smart move.
- u1hcw9nx 6mo ago>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged their currencies to the dollar. around 1965, De Gaulle initiated a systematic, aggressive policy where they converted USD into physical gold every time French acquired USD from trade, then French Navy picked those gold bullions from NY. By 1971, the US gold reserves had decreased so much that they did not cover the dollars circulating globally and Nixon "closed the gold window,"
- hypeatei 6mo agoDe Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.
- c7b 6mo agoHe also called Brexit before the UK had even joined.
- stingraycharles 6mo agoI think that is the part that the parent is referring to.
- corford 6mo agoIIRC, De Gaulle & Churchill proposed a UK-FR union at one point (1940?) but it didn't get sufficient support within the French government. Interesting to ponder what the war and later EU trajectories might have looked like if that had happened.
- philistine 6mo ago
- dev1ycan 6mo agoCharles de Gaulle was such an incredible man, nearly 60 years after his death he still keeps influencing the direction of France (for the better)
- jmyeet 6mo agoThe funny thing about this is that since 1945, France keeps and uses the majority of the gold reserves of 14 former French colonies in West and Central Africa and uses that power to make them use the CFA Franc, a currency pegged formerly to the French Franc but now of course to the Euro [1]. It's worth noting that the stated reason here isn't because of, say, US instability but rather "standardizing" the gold. It doesn't say what that means but I assume France is basically selling some New York held nonstandard gold to "standard" gold held in France. "Standard" here probably means a given size and purity. Yes, there are different purity levels to gold. So think the heavy bullion bars you see on movies. [1]: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-african-cfa-franc-works-as-an-enabler-and-barrier-to-development/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-france-backed-afr...
- jt2190 6mo ago> 2. Improvement in income from non-monetary activities > Net income from assets denominated in euro rose by EUR 2 billion, driven by an increase in outstandings. Income from assets held for own account rose by EUR 12.2 billion as a result of an exceptional item. In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025. > Net operating expenditure remained under control, falling to EUR 831 million from EUR 888 million in 2024. Since 2015, net operating expenditure has fallen by an average of 4.1% in volume terms. > Overall, after transferring EUR 5 billion from reserves and booking a corporation tax charge of EUR 1.5 billion, net profit for 2025 totalled EUR 8.1 billion. > A total of EUR 0.4 billion of this amount has been allocated to the special reserve, in accordance with regulations, while the remainder has been used to clear the deficit in retained earnings (EUR 7.7 billion) that was left after the allocation of the net loss in 2024 > After clearing these past losses in their entirety, the Banque de France’s net equity – comprised of own funds plus unrealised capital gains on asset holdings – is now extremely solid at EUR 283.4 billion, up from EUR 202.7 billion in 2024. The Banque de France’s net equity includes a revaluation reserve of state gold and foreign exchange reserves (RRRODE) of EUR 11.4 billion, to cover future monetary expenses I assume that this increased equity makes selling bonds a bit easier? From: “Net profit of EUR 8.1 billion, enabling the clearing of losses carried forward” https://www.banque-france.fr/en/press-release/net-profit-eur-81-billion-enabling-clearing-losses-carried-forward https://www.banque-france.fr/en/press-release/net-profit-eur...
- gtsnexp 6mo agoThe "BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine" sounds profoundly interesting.
- slater 6mo ago"La Souterraine" is underground, you say? :D
- Arubis 6mo agoNot your keys, not your coins.
- mrits 6mo agoThis doesn't make much sense as you would use something like this to keep your keys safe.
- Arubis 6mo agoIt's a trust issue. And trust and competence are inextricably linked. Most of us with career-track jobs use electronic deposit to an account at a bank, and keep things there. The account is "yours", and the trust is established over time--most people using most banks continue having access to their deposit of record most of the time. When that fails, you get a bank run--which is systemically undesirable, but also ends with people not having "their" money. They thought it was theirs, but it turned out not to be. If your bank started publishing poorly-written notices about how they'd terminate accounts and retain holdings for certain customers based on arbitrary behavior, and kept changing that definition, would you leave "your" money there--even if the only alternative were to purchase precious metals and lock them up yourself?
- TacticalCoder 6mo ago$15 B gains... Just to put things in perspective: France has a GDP of about 3.5 trillion USD and a public debt of 117% of that amount. $15 B is not even a drop in the bucket. To add to France's problem: in 2024 the PIB growth was 1.2%, which doesn't even counter inflation. And it's been like that since 2008: inflation adjusted in USD, no growth (while both the US and China's GDP inflation-adjusted skyrocketed). The EU, and the eurozone in particular, is totally losing the plot: 1 company in the top 50 companies by market cap, ASML (and it's not french). One.
- BrtByte 6mo agoFeels like one of those stories where the headline makes it sound geopolitical, but the details are mostly about accounting and logistics
- justonceokay 6mo agoYes and no. Even though the use of USD as reserve has been falling globally over time, there are a lot of news articles showing up on this site lately about divestment in USD. So on the surface level this is politics in the sense that it marks the end of a long process between two countries. Deeper, it is very political in that some entity wants to normalize and for us to be thinking a lot about the future of American isolationism.
- happyPersonR 6mo agolol at all the finance folks This isn’t reddit. This is a technical forum. We talk about cool tech stuff.
- trwhite 6mo agoWhen is it correct to use “tonnes” or “tons”?
- shin_lao 6mo agoThis article is poorly written. No new wealth was created. They monetized an existing accounting/revaluation gain by selling older, non-standard bars and replacing them with compliant bars, while keeping the overall gold quantity unchanged. That is not the same as "we moved gold home and earned $15B on the move." In simple terms: - You buy x of gold at $10 - You sell it much later for $100 - You made a profit of $90, and you hold $100 of cash - You rebuy x of gold for $100, back to the same gold exposure, but on the books, you have $90 of profit
- Galanwe 6mo agoI don't get your point. Gold price increased, the gains were unrealized, now they realized when they rolled to a new position. The only nitpick would be that they did not mention the benchmark rate, so it's hard to guess the absolute gain. What is poorly written or misleading here...? That just looks like a normal capital gain to me.
- Bootvis 6mo agoWhat is the benefit of realizing the gains for France? They had gold, they still have gold. They don't pay tax on their gold or gains.
- Galanwe 6mo agoI don't think they cared about realizing the gains. They just wanted to roll to a new position on higher standard ingots. It just so happen that it meant selling/buying, which realizes the gains.
- kshacker 6mo agoCapital gain and losses are when you need to pay taxes. If you sold 100K of SPY that you bought for 10K actually, and bought it back (It is a gain so there is no wash sale) immediately, you need to pay taxes for $90K. This is just an exchange based on the comments I am reading.
- 6mo ago
- hackerbeat 6mo agoGood. The US is not to be trusted anymore.
- DaSHacka 6mo agoLol "anymore" Vietnam war: i sleep CIA regime change: i sleep MKULTRA on its own citizens: i sleep five-eyes global surveillance network: i sleep orange man saying canada/greenland joining as the 51st state would be neat: real shit
- nicbou 6mo agoThat's a mild way to describe how the current administration antagonizes its allies The keyword here is allies.
- didgetmaster 6mo agoI wonder if someone in Fance recently saw the Die Hard movie where thieves robbed the Federal Reserve Bank in NY.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- barkingcat 6mo agogood target for the Louvre thieves!
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]