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You're reading way to much into this. Physical gold bars are transferred via plane between London and New York every day. The gold flies in the cargo holds of
by tristanj 1mo ago
You're reading way to much into this.
Physical gold bars are transferred via plane between London and New York every day. The gold flies in the cargo holds of regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights. The quantity transferred depends on demand, and could be several metric tons daily.
This is nothing unusual. Dubai is another major gold transfer hub, and it operates via the same mechanism.
Regarding the article highlighting differing international standards for gold, London uses standard 400-ounce bars, while the US uses 100-ounce or 1kg bars. Often, the bars need to be remelted (elsewhere, typically in Switzerland) before they can be added to the vaults.
Again, nothing unusual.
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- lxgr 1mo agoIs gold really sufficiently fungible to enable daily bidirectional sizable flows across the Atlantic, but not fungible enough to allow somebody to net these flows out and save at least one way of the airfare?
- andrewflnr 1mo agoCoordination cost maybe. If you're transferring A -> B and C <- D, but A and C or B and D don't know each other or even dislike each other, it's going to be hard to even get them to talk about the fungibility of the actual bars. And I bet airfare is the cheapest part after all the security and paychecks of people arranging the transaction.
- marcosdumay 1mo agoYes. Gold is fungible only within the same custodian. Many people buy (normally small) gold bars only to discover that they can't sell them back by the same price.
- carlosjobim 1mo agoThat is the spread which the gold dealers have to make a profit. But bullion is bullion anywhere you turn and no matter to who you sell. No gold dealer will turn down investment grade gold.
- marcosdumay 1mo ago> No gold dealer will turn down investment grade gold. For sure. As long as you pay the laboratory fee up front to prove that the thing you have is investment grade...
- carlosjobim 1mo agoNever have a gold dealer anywhere asked me for any laboratory fee when selling bullion to them. They have their spread and that's it. It's their job to recognize bullion and have their own laboratory to quickly check if needed.