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Good 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 re
by carefree-bob 7mo ago
Good 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 7mo 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 7mo ago> the price of gold continued to rise as they did this This would mean they sold low and bought high, right?
- renewiltord 7mo 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 7mo agoI'm not sure the central bank is paying capital gains taxes?
- DaedalusII 7mo agoprice of gold dropped from $5500 to $4600 in the last few weeks then came back. all is possible
- mort96 7mo agoThen they didn't make money as a result of the price rising, which is what the original commenter and article claimed.
- coldtea 7mo agoUsually that's how you want your selling and buying combos to be...
- berkes 7mo agoBut the gold price has been rising (on average) a lot over the period July 2025 to January 2026
- berkes 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo agoThat accent somehow migrated two characters too far.
- stavros 7mo agoNah that's how it's spelled in French.
- sph 7mo agoTrue, but ‘Doré’ means golden, and would make for a better joke.
- pyrale 7mo agoOn the other hand, Dore is an actual toponym. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monts_Dore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monts_Dore
- rkomorn 7mo 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 7mo 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 7mo ago[deleted]
- BrtByte 7mo agoCentral banks often hold gold on their books at very old prices
- omcnoe 7mo 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.