Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
Gold swaps undertaken by the Bank for International Settlements on behalf of its member central banks fell slightly in February to 104 tonnes from 106 tonnes in January, GATA’s consultant on the BIS, Robert Lambourne, reported Friday.
Lambourne estimates the swaps from the bank’s monthly statements of account, and the February statement was published last week:
https://www.bis.org/banking/balsheet/statofacc260228.pdf
The BIS’ gold swaps are the strongest contemporary proof of regular interventions in the gold market by central banks, interventions for which the BIS long has provided camouflage, even as many central bank members of the bank seem to have defected from Western gold price suppression policy in recent years.
The BIS has actually advertised to potential central bank members that its services to members include surreptitious interventions in the gold and currency markets:
https://www.gata.org/node/11012
According to Lambourne, the gold involved in the BIS swaps is held by a commercial bullion bank — probably as a custodian of a gold exchange-traded fund — and is swapped for dollars via the BIS, probably on behalf of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which can apply the gold in the markets as necessary to influence prices. The steady decline in BIS gold swaps in recent years may correlate with bullion bank JPMorganChase’s having become co-custodian of the gold claimed to be held by the major gold ETF, GLD.
Since ordinary shareholders of GLD cannot redeem their shares for actual metal — a right restricted to the big bullion bank “authorized participants” associated with the fund — it may be relatively easy for JPMorganChase and other bullion banks to juggle claims to GLD gold that add up to more metal than the ETF actually has, thus perpetuating the gross “rehypothecation” of gold in the market.
Lambourne notes that if the BIS follows past practice, it will issue no more monthly account statements until May or June as it undergoes an external audit and prepares its annual report for the year ending on March 31.
Only in its annual report has the BIS explicitly reported its gold swap total. Those reports have always confirmed Lambourne’s estimates and the bank has never disputed them.
Here are the BIS’ gold swap totals for the last 15 months as estimated by Lambourne:
Feb 2026: 104
Jan 2026: 106
Dec 2025: 56
Nov 2025: 39
Oct 2025: 54
Sep 2025: 54
Aug 2025: 30
Jul 2025: 34
Jun 2025: 34
May 2025: 32
Apr 2025: 5
Mar 2025: 10
Feb 2025: 22
Jan 2025: 16
Dec 2024: 78
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
[email protected]
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