➡ The discussion revolves around the import of physical gold by the US, which supports the theory that the US government is the final customer for this gold. The conversation also touches on the short positions at the Comax for both gold and silver, and the equivalent paper long position at the LBMA. The LBMA and the Comax are viewed as one entity, with the manipulation offshored to the LBMA. The Comax is currently the number one physical delivery market in the world on a pro rata basis.

➡ The discussion revolves around the repatriation of gold, particularly to the U.S. treasury. The speakers speculate that the Federal Reserve might be trying to replenish gold reserves that have been used for various purposes, such as market manipulation. They also discuss the importance of 400-ounce bars as the standard for monetary gold. The last full audit of U.S. gold reserves was in the 1950s, and there’s a suggestion that a new audit would aim to confirm the presence of 8,133 metric tons of gold, regardless of the form it takes.

➡ The discussion revolves around the complexities of gold contracts and the physical possession of gold. The speakers discuss the new 400 ounce bar contract with CarMax and the historical issues with gold repatriation, such as Germany’s request to inspect and retrieve their gold held by the Fed. They also discuss the potential issues with the GLD (Gold ETF) vault, suggesting that the gold may be used for other purposes or may not even be there. The conversation ends with the idea that these contracts and ETFs may be diverting investors away from buying and possessing physical gold.

➡ The text discusses the complexities of gold trading, focusing on the GLD (Gold ETF). It explains how GLD is not the same as owning physical gold and how it’s used by banks as a substitute product. The text also highlights how JP Morgan has become the primary custodian of GLD’s physical gold, shifting control back to America. The discussion ends with a question about why there’s a need for physical gold to be back in the U.S.

➡ The article discusses the possibility of reintroducing gold into the monetary system. The author suggests that if the world were to return to a gold-backed currency, countries like China would require proof of the U.S.’s gold reserves before accepting its currency. This could lead to a change in the monetary system and international trade, as countries would need to demonstrate their gold reserves to continue trading. The author also mentions the Bretton Woods system, which allowed foreign buyers to exchange U.S. Treasuries for gold, and how its closure led to an imbalance in the U.S.’s gold reserves and Treasury issuance.

There has been much discussion surrounding the recent repatriation of gold and silver to the us While China has simultaneously begun drawing more metal towards its own vaults. All this coincides with Donald Trump’s election. Although it has been going on for some time, his threat of tariffs, a growing discord amongst trade partners, including Europe and elsewhere, are part of that problem. Welcome to the Morning Markets and Metals with Vince Lancy, where each morning Vince brings you the financial and precious metals news. Get you ready for your day. And now, here’s Vince. My name is Vince Lancy and joining me today are two people that I think are very important voices in the precious metals arena.

And given the current situation with regards to deliveries out of London and deliveries to the US and the re. Engagement of deliveries into China, I’ve invited both of them to speak. Actually, they’ve invited me to speak, to have a conversation with them. So I’m very happy there has been. Well, let me just introduce them. First. We’ve got Dave Kranzler. Right. And we’ve got Eric Young. Now, Dave is a respected veteran in the precious metals industry. He is a managing owner of Golden Returns Capital and publisher of the well known Mining Stock Journal, which comes out twice monthly.

He’s known for insightful market analysis and decades of experience trading gold, silver and other valuable metals. If you’re as old as me, you remember he is also an active contributor to gata. Eric. Hi, David, Good to see you. Good to see you, Vince. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, this is fun, this is fun. Let’s see if we can make it work. Right, Eric, also known as King Kong on social media. He is out of Hong Kong mostly, with strong ties to mainland China and the U.S. eric’s roots are as an entrepreneur in manufacturing, with a subsequent deep knowledge base and financial stake in metals.

From a uniquely China perspective, Eric, like David, is also known for advocating transparency in bullion markets. All right, Eric, did I do you justice? Hey, thank you, Vince. Thank you for having me on today. What time is it where you. It’s 12:30am in the morning. Excellent. Yeah. Cool. All right, so there you go. Money never sleeps. All right, so the reason for this conversation, we haven’t titled it yet, but the three of us will figure out afterwards. There has been much discussion surrounding the recent repatriation of gold and silver to the US While China has simultaneously begun drawing more metal towards its own vaults.

All this coincides with Donald Trump’s election, although it has been going on for some time. This threat of tariffs, a growing discord amongst Trade partners, including Europe and elsewhere are part of that problem. The epicenter, as we’ve all agreed to or observable source for all this gold that’s being pulled to the corners of the world and silver is, is London. And that will be probably the geographic epicenter of our conversation today. So how do you want to start this off, guys? Dave, you, how do you want, what do you want to talk about? What’s going, what’s going on in New York City and London, Paraphrasing your own question.

Perfect. Yeah. So what do you think? What’s going on in New York City? You know, this is, this is if, if what’s going on. If I. If from right. About what I think is going on. Because I think it’s important to know that you never. It’s impossible to get really good information right on the physical, the flows of physical gold and silver globally. It’s intentionally kept opaque, especially by the Western interests. And so if what I think is happening is happening, I’ve been waiting for 20 years for this to start happening. You know, and, and g, you mentioned GATA, they actually were writing about this potential, you know, 25 years ago, where you have a massive short interest in physical bars, right? It’s, it’s derivatives based.

It’s also bars that are leased out by central banks, even bars that are leased out or swapped by the biscuits. And they always thought, and I’ve always thought that at some point, if enough of the counterparties decide that they want to not only just take delivery of their bars, but take possession of them rather than leave them in the London vaults. And I’m not talking about high net worth people in retail, I’m talking about sovereigns and central banks. And I think there’s wealthy family offices involved now and very wealthy people. And I always thought that if they started to actually want to take possession of their bars, we’d start to see a shortage that potentially could squeeze the market.

And you mentioned that, you know, the flows between London and New York that kind of started since Trump got elected, probably started before that. But really what I think stimulated, I mean, China for a long, long time, like longer than any of us can possibly know, has always been taking possession of their bars that they buy. They leave some in London for trading, liquidity, whatever, but they, they’ve always been taking possession of their bars. And I think what’s happened is that when the US sees Russia’s assets being held in western central banks, a light bulb went off with a lot of other Eastern hemisphere central banks that have been buying gold believing the bars in the London vaults.

Right? And you leave the bars in those vaults, and the, the banks that have custody of those bars are free to do what they want with those bars. Right? They’re just accounting records. So, and, and so what’s happened is, is you’ve had a lot more countries and central banks decide that they’re going to repatriate their bars. They want possession of them. They don’t want to just have a piece of paper that says they’re sitting in a London vault. And I mean, even India, India announced recently that they’ve repatriated a couple hundred tons. Poland’s repatriating gold. Now there’s several other eastern hemisphere central banks that are repatriating gold.

And I think what’s happened is it’s created a shortage of unencumbered bars that can be delivered to the rightful owners who want possession of them. And I think that’s what we’re seeing right now. I think that’s spot on you’re describing. I mean, it seems like it’s decades ago now, but it was in 2021, during, right after Covid, that we began to realize that supply chains were breaking and this kind of. And it becomes, it became manifest first, obviously to the public in the BRICs. And they started, as you said, India, China, they started wanting their gold.

And at first, you know, the mainstream media, most people did not really understand why, what’s the big deal? It’s just gold. And the reality of it is, as you, as you, as you, as you implied, is that they wanted their physical gold back. You know, people talk about, we talked about this. Taking delivery versus taking possession is entirely different level. So not only were they taking delivery and storing it in a, in the bank of England or the LBMA vault or, or even on the comex, they were taking delivery and then taking possession. And that was, as you said, breakdown of trust as evidenced with their confiscation of the Russian wealth.

And that’s like, you know what? I think I’d rather have gold in treasuries than I need to have it in my possession. I think that’s a significant moment that you describe that’s been going on and what did it lead to? We have a crisis of collateral. I agree, I agree with that. Eric, what do you think? I think it’s just what’s happening. What happened in the last two and a half months and what is continuing to happen is pretty out of the ordinary, is crazy. You guys know the numbers, but I’M going to say it again.

Just two weeks ago StoneX reported that the US imported around 2,000 metric tons of physical gold into the country. I’m going to share a picture while you’re doing that because I think we got a good visual aid for you. Yeah, keep going. Okay, so 2000 tons plus by now. Because now it’s like two weeks after Stonex. By the way, Stonex is a LBMA member. They are a participant of the Amp LBMA gold and silver price fix. So these guys are not nobodies. I mean they’re high up there, right? Very well, very well connected. So they’re saying 2,000 metric tons plus.

Right. But think about this. The LBMA only imported around 700 metric tons in that same period. So you have 1300 metric tons unaccounted for. And then our mutual, you know, friend, me and Dave’s mutual friend Ronan Manny pointed out today and I, I see that you also commented on it, Vince, today, his post. Right. That you know, the gold import numbers only reflect the LBMA numbers. Sorry, only reflect the comax import numbers of that 700 tons. Right. So what’s happening with the 1300 tons, the rest of it like all of those 2000 tons that the US imported in that period.

Right. And Ron and Manny, Ron and Manny said that it has to be monetary gold because if it’s monetary gold imported into the US it doesn’t need to be emitted into the import numbers. And that makes sense. Right, so monetary gold. So that kind of. Well, it’s not kind of. It does support my thesis that the US government, the Fed or the proxies is the final customer standing for delivery for this goal. I’m not talking about just, you know, comax, I’m talking about otc. Right. Because really what Stonex is saying is that there, there is 1300, like 1,300 metric tons of physical gold that were imported by OTC, which is over the counter, you know, over the counter, like offshore.

Right. Somewhere, I don’t know, like Australia, Africa, et cetera. Right, right. That came in without going through the lbma. Right, okay. So, so having said that, that’s like, I think like huge news today that came out that I thought, wow, like, you know, you know, that’s most likely like Ron and Manny said, that’s monetary gold. Right, right, right. And then on top of that, I do want to comment on what they’ve said about the, about the concentrated short positions at the Comax for both gold and silver because that’s what Jim Sinclair and Ted Buffler said, right? All these years they, they continually said the same thing, right? And yes, it’s there.

But I’m going to tell you guys this, and you guys probably know this already, right? For most of those short positions that they have at the Comax, these Boolean banks, they have an equivalent paper long position at the lbma. Okay? So that’s what they call the, the EFP trading pair, right? So they were short the comics. It’s like, it’s like a basis trade, right? That’s the definitely definition of the basis. So they short the CarMax and they long the LBMA. But remember this though, right? Remember this? No. Right, I remember. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, so, so I just, I just want to stop for one second.

For those that are not familiar, the EFP is a spread that measures the demand versus the demand in, let’s just say Europe versus the US and the EFP really doesn’t account for actual fresh demand. But Eric’s point is that the EFP has some very large open interest that has accumulated over years. I’m sorry, Eric, go ahead. It’s okay. I’m just going to. Vince, you got a very good point. Like I got to kind of explain what EFT is before we move on. So what EFT is on a layman’s perspective, it’s just a contract that allows two parties to settle off exchange, like they call it off exchanges, but you still go through the comex, clearport or whatever they call it.

Right? Is basically not. You’re not settling at ecommerce, you’re setting off exchange. But normally 90% of what happens there is that it’s just a cash settlement. There’s no physical. Right. So they would just settle two contracts and they settle the arbitrage, whatever it is. Right? But at times what they can do is they can bring the physical. In this case I’m talking about short decormax, long the lbma. So they stand for delivery at the LBMA and they bring the metal to the COMEX and settle at the EFP at the comma. So still outside exchange, right? You bring the metal to whoever is standing for delivery at the commax.

Okay, so that’s how EFT works, Right? But yeah, just continuing what I just said, right, so they massively shot the COMEX and they long the LBMA contract. Right? But what they long with at the lbma, first of all, is a piece of paper. It’s a paper promissory note as we see now, because it doesn’t guarantee that you get a metal like for example, what’s happening in the last two months, two and a half months. You can have that cash contract or like spot contract or the forward contract at the LBMA. But your delivery time is T +2.

It went from T +2 to T +60 or T +90. So that’s a guarantee you that you get a metal right at the lbma. That’s actually a default. Right? That’s essentially default. But the LBMA is this OTC market right over the counter. So what that means is that they have certain rules but essentially it’s a private transaction between the buyer and the seller. So that’s why they can do this. They can elongate that delivery time indefinitely because there’s no exchange rules at the lbma. So what I’m trying to say is that on the macro point of view what they did, what this is, is I look at the LBMA and the Comax as one entity, one entity and they offshored the manipulation to lbma, you see? Right, right.

Well you can do all this stuff. You can elongate your delivery time. You can, I’m just, because I’m on the road, I’m just going to finish this. Right. You can flood the LBMA with like 10, 100 to 1, 400 to 1, you know, paper to physical contracts, which it was before all this happened in the past. Right. You can do like you know, nickel shots which, which is you kind of short on the LBMA because it’s, it’s a cash market. Right. But you can buy forward contracts. I’m sorry, you can, you can sell forward contracts. Right.

If you sell there is short, there is a paper market in the lbma. It’s just not well known. Right? Yeah, so, so it’s a huge paper market. It’s also a physical market. The paper market is a lot bigger. And what the banksters did is they offshore the manipulation to, to the LBMA mostly. Okay. They’re shorting. Right. So that’s why, remember Vince, we, me and you, we talk to like, you know, I’m not going to name names but like the people who are like LBMA shows. Right, right. And I see Dave know arguing with them too. And every single time these people are saying you guys don’t understand the EFP trading curve.

Like we are not naked short at the Comax. And they’re right, they are not naked short at the Comax but they are essentially shorting at the lbma. Let me just add something in a big yin yang way. So to your point about before, before I bring this back to something Dave had said. The EFP is, is a, the price of commodities, specifically gold and silver is the last thing to move when there’s a crisis. They will use the EFP to kind of move problems from left to right. They will borrow from Peter to pay Paul on the physical.

Now the, the what Eric just said kind of, kind of inspired me to make a statement. Hopefully it’s true. As the physical market becomes more and more American, the metals coming here, the paper market is becoming more and more London. So it’s kind of like if the rehypothecation is no longer here because we’re taking delivery, then it has moved there. It’s almost like there’s a role reversal between this uneasy partnership that we have. Anyway, does that pretty much summarize at least what’s going on right now, at least, Eric? I think so. I think like, you know, if you look at what happened in the last two and a half months.

Let me, let me give you some numbers, okay. And you guys give you some concrete numbers, right? You just saw some numbers today. Hold on, you saw numbers today, right? Yeah, but I will give you some concrete numbers to prove your point, what you just said, because you’re saying that the lbm, the comax is becoming a physical market. Right? So let’s, let’s look at this. Okay. How much metal do you think the LBMA delivered on average before all this crap happened? On average year? 900 metric tons. I’m just going to tell you, right. 900 metric tons of physical gold.

How much gold did the US import? We’re not going to question this because it’s real. Stone egg said it. Booty and vote said it. 2000 metric tons in two and a half months. So if you, let’s say, let’s say I’m like say I’m just going to grossly lowball this. This year, 2025, the US is probably going to be on track of importing around 4,000 metric tons of gold. Right? Okay. So that’s what, that’s four times of what the LBMA does usually. Right. Okay. Period. Right. How much does the Shanghai Gold Exchange does you do? Right. That does, sorry, in, in, in a year, you, you know this number.

I’m going to tell you. Right. 1,450 metric tons. That’s how much they, because they’re total, they’re pure physical market. Right. In terms of delivery. But the withdrawal is like 70%. Right? Right. So 1,450 metric tons. So that’s still less than what the COMEX is doing right now in comparison. So to prove to just like renew back back to what you said, new correct events, the comics right now as it stands. I mean, my change, right, like down the road, because this, this is like unusual reverse. We know it could be reversed. Right. We know it in reverse.

Right. But for now, it’s number one. It’s the number one physical delivery market in the world on a pro rata basis. You. You said a couple things that reminded me of something that, that Dave said. I mean, really, you said a lot of. A lot of important things there. One of the things that I think is worth exploring is Dave touched on it when he said we are all touching on it from different areas. And we talked about this before I hit record and that is what’s the gold coming back for now. I made a statement about, you know, they’re replenishing Fort Knox, you know, offhandedly.

But everyone, including your reference by Ronan Manley, is alluding to the same concept we’re repatriating for an urgent or pressing need. So, Dave, you actually started off talking about this. Would you mind. Would you mind taking that? The point was just to help you get started on it. The point was why are we bringing this metal here? And you had alluded to the fact that we’re satisfying something. What. What is it you think we’re satisfying? You know, it’s interesting. It. It. Well, first I, we. You know, I just want to make sure that we’re differentiating between delivery and taking possession.

That’s right. When you say, you know, x amount of tons is delivered on the Comex, it isn’t really delivered to the end the. The owner, unless the owner withdraws it. Right. Make it a pain in the ass to withdraw the bars. I’ve done it. And it was a pain for you and me, maybe, but not for JP Morgan if they need it. But that’s another conversation. They’re part owner of the Comex. Right? Right, right, right. So. But. And it took me a while to come around to thinking this about this or accepting that this could be what’s going on, because I, for the longest time, I have not really trusted the numbers that the COMEX puts out.

Right. They’re not audited independently. Right. They’re produced by the banks. If. If what the banks are showing us is honest and ethical, it’s the only part of their balance sheet that is honest and ethical. Right. Their financial reporting. Right, right, right, right. But, you know, let’s. Let’s just take the numbers at face value, they don’t cheat on precious metals. They only cheat on the other stuff. Right, exactly. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Go ahead. I think, and I’ll just preface this with, you know, for a couple weeks there, all we heard about was Trump was gonna go look at bars at Fort Knox quietly this week, that conversations kind of faded, in my opinion.

Haven’t heard much about it this week. Right, right. And so, you know, for the longest time, there’s been the school of thought with, with, and again, it’s impossible to get evidence unless you can actually get inside the vaults. Germany wanted evidence and you know, of their gold inside the Fed vaults, and the Fed wouldn’t let them. Right. That, that’s why they repatriated back in 2013, half of their gold held by the Fed. Well, a little less than half. But there’s been a school of thought and, you know, we’re called tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists, that the gold that is held in custody by the Fed on behalf of the US treasury is no longer there.

And I think for me, it’s not even really an argument or a debate. I don’t think it’s there. And I think what we could be seeing is in this scramble by all these countries to get their gold out of London, we could be seeing the Fed doing the same thing to replenish the gold that it’s used for purposes of rehypothecation, manipulating the market, leased out to central banks, et cetera. You know, they see what’s going on here and what’s coming down the pike, and I, I think there’s a very definitive possibility that the Fed may be looking to, you know, refill the empty cupboard.

Right, right, right. You know, the, the one other point here, because I wanted to, this also just to clarify for, for the audience, when Eric refers to monetary gold, he’s referring to the 400 ounce bars that central banks traffic in. Not, not the 100 ounce bars, not the kilo bars, it’s the big Boy bars. That’s, that’s where I was going with. You know, Eric brought up a point about the four, about monetary gold, you know, and, and Ronan Manley’s point, by the way, if Ronan’s watching this. My first, the first thing I wrote about Chinese market structure was based on research that I found by Ronan Manley.

So I know that the man knows his incredible research. Oh, yeah, he’s great. He’s great and incredible. That’s incredible. That’s, that’s where, that’s, that’s where I figured out that all the gold that goes into China stays in China was like a commercial I wrote at the time. All right, so anyway. But the 400 ounce bars are the required bar for monetary gold. So I have a question for you. Purely like not rhetorical at all. You remember in 2020, right? Both of you remember in 2020 when there was a. I think I was lied to. Let’s. This is what I’m a start with, right? So you’re going to answer if I was lied to in 2020, what everyone was freaking out about the COMEX backwardation futures.

I reached out to a couple people. One of them was the late great George Jiro. And I said, this doesn’t make sense. Why are these 400 bar just not being EFP’d over here? You know why they’re not just being EFP’d over here. And then we’ll just worry about it later on. And why is JP Morgan not taking advantage of this arbitrage that Eric was talking about? Well, if it’s too high there and it’s too low here, then we’ll just do an EFP and swap. The financial desire, the panic. And George said to me back then, he said, well, and he was right.

But again, this is another one of those pretenses. Back then the refiners and smelters in Switzerland and Northern Italy had shut down because of COVID So they couldn’t remelt them. They couldn’t remelt them, right? And the EFP got stretched and they stopped and I went okay. I was satisfied with this explanation. I was like, okay. And then of course the COMEX came up with a, a 400 to 100 swap contract. You remember that, right? The Ace contract. Yeah, exactly. Something. Okay, so, so this is regulatory arbitrage. The exchanges are stupid and now they’re fixing it. It will never happen again.

That’s what I walked away from that moment. Something else will break, but not that. And so now you’re telling me that the 400 ounce bars were needed and they couldn’t deliver them on COMEX because in 2020, remember that picture I had up there in 2020, we were repatriating gold, monetary gold, for our own purposes. Whoever we are going to be the banks. Could it be the federal government? I don’t know. But, but you’re telling me that, you guys are telling me that monetary gold is only 400 ounce bar gold. Like that’s how it works, Eric. Yeah, so I just want to add to that, right? First of all, I like I think Dave is right.

400B. 400 ounce bars for monetary central Banko. Let’s say I’m not challenging for the Western, you know. Well I look at it this way, right. Look at what Donald Trump is doing with the terrorists. Right. It’s pretty chaotic, it’s pretty crazy. So if they were to do an audit, I know Dave talked about this and Ron and talk about it talked about this. How are they going to get, you know get the go back up to spec to you know like let’s say you guys talk about the 400 bar monetary go right. To what they had back in the 1950s.

That, that was by the way the last time they did the full audit of all the votes. Not just F. Knox. F. Knox Denver West Point and the Fed vaults. Right. The Federal Reserve. Am I missing anything Dave? Or did I get all of them? Right. Okay, good. 1950s I believe it was 53. Okay. They did it. Right. And so back to the 400. I just think that if they were to do it today that their goal is to just find 8,133 triances. 33 metric tons. Sorry, right. 8,133 metric tons. Which is what is, which is on the fest, you know, binding sheet.

Right. Okay. Which is. That was the number from the last time there was an independent third party audit of the gold held by the Fed on behalf of the Treasury. That was right in the 1950s. 1953. Correct. Eisenhower was president. It’s the last time there’s been a real audit of that gold. Okay. So to continue my story, I think if they were to do it, that’s the goal. Dave and I told Ron and Manny in private as well. That’s their goal. So it doesn’t matter what they have in there. If it’s like a coin boss. If it’s 100, you know, arms bars, 400 arms.

As long as they have the golder of you know, purity. I’m talking about 90 and above. Right, right. It’s, it’s game. I’m just use. I’m just looking at it from a real politic perspective like, like Tom Longo. Right. You know keep talking about this. They just going to do whatever it takes to make it work. Well that’s why the time factor, that’s why the time factor comes into it. You have to get it in the proper form. Dave, I want to just. Sorry just to interject, just to jump in. Dave talked about the £400 bar. The CarMax actually has a new contract with 400.

£400 bar as well. Right. It’s a new contract. There you go. That’s your physical. It used to be. Yeah, it used to be like very low. What, guess what like the volume. Right. Guess what happened in the last two and a half months. A jump. So they imported. This is from Michael lynch from, you know, he, he got the data from the Comax. Data. Michael’s a really, really good data. Yeah. 70 around. I don’t have the exact figure but it’s above 70. It’s 70 metric tons. Let me, let Dave jump in here for a second. Dave you mentioned, and this is exactly what he’s talking about and I have, this is another question, genuine question for me.

So with regard to this 400 ounce bar monetary metal, is that why you think maybe we were delayed in getting our gold together for Germany back in the day? Like we didn’t have the proper format. My understanding is, and again it’s impossible to know, it’s just based on third party comments at the time is that most of the gold that was shipped back to Germany. So first of all there was a big movement in Germany, a populist movement and a political movement for Germany to take possession of all its gold that it’s held in central banks, not just the Fed, you know, globally central banks.

And so Germany requested that they be able to send an official delegation over to inspect their gold held by the Fed. And apparently the gold was being held in nine different vaults, presumably a lot of it at West Point. And, and the Fed said no, we’ll let you look at your gold in one vault. And I’m assuming that was the Fed’s New York City voltage. Right, right. And, and so when the Fed said no, Germany said okay, well we want, and I don’t remember the exact number, let’s say that you know, we hold 1500 tons on their behalf.

They wanted 700 of it back. Right. And they, the US negotiated on 300 tons over seven years. Right, right, right. And then the headline was, I just want to interject this part, the headline was they asked for like 2013 and then, and then we asked, we said we need seven years. And then the headlines were we got it back to them ahead of schedule, like seven years. The funny thing is, is that they did it in three years. Right, right. When Hugo Chavez repatriated Venezuela’s 200 tons of gold, he got it back in two months. Right, right.

Why is it going to take three, three years? Right. Or up to seven years. My understanding is that much of the gold that was sent back to Germany was not in the, the original bars. That a lot of it was coin melt, you know, and other non monetary metal forms. Which kind of ties with Eric’s saying we had the metal but we didn’t want to. I mean maybe we had the metal, who knows, right? But we sourced the metal, we got, we figured out where the metal was and we didn’t have time to re smelt it or re refine it.

And so we just went back to, to Germany and said listen, just please don’t tell anyone that, that these are not the right bars. And that’s basically what’s going on. So maybe that’s what’s going on in reverse now. Meaning, meaning we need 400 ounce bars to Eric’s point, right? Monetary gold and London’s been picked dry and they have, you know, bullshit up. They have a lot of Merlot because the Cabernet has been drained dry. So we don’t have this take that flavor, you know, it’s a flavor of gold. I don’t know. But that’s what it seems like is going on in London.

It’s actually, it’s actually reversed, vince. London has 400 an spas and Callmax is primarily 100. Right, right. You see, so, so they were like the story is that they, that they gave out is that they were going to convert those 400 bars at London to 100 to meet the COMEX spec. Like that was it back in 2000. Was it the COVID 2020? Right when that, when that happened. So that was the story back then, but that time. Yeah, that was the story this time doesn’t even make sense because they have like a 400 contract at the comics.

So why would like, why would that story even make any sense? You don’t Even know the 2020 story. That’s part of that. The point I want to make, the 2020 story I was told was a fucking lie. And now we’re. So now they have the contract. They have the 400 ounce contract. Doesn’t make any sense. No sense. Okay, why create a grab the. Yeah, they just grab the LBMA bar, dump it, COMEX done. And they do it. They were doing it. They imported 70, let’s just say 74, you know, metricons. They did it. Right, right. So whatever that BS story, whoever is from is just complete.

I mean, I’m really tired, I think. No, I’m talking about all these stories that we need, we need to filter through. Like there’s so many. You can’t stop it because you can’t stop it. Until we get on a TV show like Luke Groman to Tucker Carlson, talk about it. But, you know, we don’t want that to happen because then we might disappear as well. No, I mean, Eric, Luke didn’t disappear. But your, your point about, your point about Comex having inferior bars? I, I. Let me, let me, let me refine. What? I said refine. I can’t remember use that word.

Comox has inferior bars. London has encumbered bars. Like, I feel like everything in London has been loaned out. Like, look, the LBMA paper market is spicy. All London has is 800,000,000,000 ounces of proper gold. And of that, like, you know, one bar is unspoken for. And that’s why we need to take our gold back. Anyway, so what do you guys want to add about gold before we move on to silver? Because, well, we, we don’t have to talk about it, but there is a white elephant sitting in the room, and that is what’s going on with GLD’s bars.

Yeah. Do you want me to talk about it? Because I know exactly where you’re going with that. Let Dave start. Let Dave start. No, because he brought it up. Let Dave start. I remember when the prospectus for GLD was filed and James Turk went through it with a fine tooth comb and he said that this thing, this thing has more leaks in it than a sieve in terms of accountability. And, you know, it essentially enables the custodian of the GLD vault, which back then was hsbc, now it’s HSBC and jpm. No coincidence that JPM got involved.

Okay, Exactly. Because they’re the custodian for slv. Right. And it basically allows them to use the gold bar sitting in the GLD vault for their own purposes if they want double duty. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it’s also. And, and I actually piggybacked the work that he did in 2004. I wrote a paper about it in 2009. I’ve been. If I can find the time, I want to go back through the, the GLD prospectus again because they’ve actually loosened it up even more since. Since 2000. They have, they have. They made it worse.

Right, exactly. We don’t have to give you the. I’d like to revise that paper and publish it. It’s just, it’s a lot of work. Right. But it’s, it’s highly probable that the gold that, you know, and everyone talks about. Oh, well, this amount of gold went into gld. This amount of silver went into slv. Has anyone seen proof of that? Right, right, right. Yeah. And so it’s also very likely. See, I think when you. When we were talking about what happened in 2020, the, the gimmicky ACE contract and some of the other things, measures that they put in place, kicked the physical problem down the road.

The physical shortage problem. Do they not do anything but kick problems down the road? That’s exactly what happened. Right, exactly. And we may be at the point now where they might not. There might not be a can to kick down the road at this point. Right. You know, and that would be. GLD’s depleted all the bars that could be delivered in London, you know, from London to, to people who want possession or entities that want possession. Those could be encumbered or they simply may not be there. Right. That’s. I think that could be at the point where we are.

I mean, we’ve always, you know, when I say we, those of us who studied GLD back then intently, we always thought that it was created a. To divert investor capital away from the physical market. As the Comex gold contract was just like the new Bitcoin ETF is. Same idea. Exactly. Divert investor capital away from buying the actual physical gold and taking possession of it and say, oh, no, here, just buy gld, it’s the same as gold. Well, it’s not, obviously. That’s the Wikipedia entry from back in the day. Remember that? 1974. We’re going to create futures because it will disincentivize physical ownership anyway.

I’ll find that somewhere. There’s actually. I think, I think. I wish I saved a copy of it. I think, I think Ronan put out a copy of it the other day or a couple of weeks ago. There’s actually a letter between Kissinger when he was Secretary of State and his financial advisors. Or that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah, yeah. Where they, they reference that. Yeah. It’s like, we got to get the plebs away from physical goal. Let’s give them a substitute product. Exactly. And since then they’ve been rating it. And by the way, this ties back to the EFP concept.

When you see, just a hat tip to Bob Coleman, when you see GLD shares get hard to short, that’s because the person who has the shares knows that if you short them, you can take the gold out of the vault and you repurpose it for something else. So JP Morgan’s gold is in that vault and they see, oh, you want a short GLD and you want to take delivery of the gold and use it for something else. Well, that’s what happened to Silver in 2011. That’s what happened there. And so the GLD went up, short rate went up, the lease rate went up, the EFP went up.

And that brings us back to what Eric was talking about. Eric, why don’t you throw something in on GLD that you wanted? Yeah, awesome. So just want to like, you know, add on to what you said about the efp. Just want to. The audience can understand how it works. So remember what I said about efp, it’s like the bridge between the LBMA and the comax, right? Well, EFP is also a bridge between the ETFs and the LBMA. So essentially the ETFs, like GLD is basically like a piggy bank buffet zone for the bankers, for the bullion banks.

So isn’t that crazy? Everything is structural manipulation. That’s what I keep saying when people argue with me about. Oh, there’s no. Yeah, because the manipulation is built from the ground up. Right. It’s in the. Is the system structural. Right. It’s not structural. Right. That’s why we caught. That’s why we caught a trader years ago. Because. Okay, like the person you throw to satisfy the. You throw to the lions. Yeah. Structural manipulation is the problem. I don’t focus, I do not focus on the spoofing. Okay, I know Dave knows all about that, the jt. I don’t focus on that either.

No. Okay, but that’s symptomatic of it. Look, you know, because a lot of people talk about it, right? They bring it up, they talk about it. I. Okay, sorry. Maybe I heard you say it, but you don’t focus on it. But like the structural manipulation is what I focus on. And I’m going to tell you what’s happening to gld. Okay, first of all, so in the past couple months, what’s happening? PLD total, like, you know, physical gold holding in terms of weight is at around 800 to 900 metric tons. Didn’t move much bounce up and down, up and down in that range.

Okay. Now if you take what happened in 20, 20, 21, that’s what everybody loves to look at. Like when HSBC was the sole custodian back then, by the way, there was no JP Morgan for GLD, only HSBC back then, GLD’s total gold, physical gold, a holding went up almost to. I think it almost touched 1500 metric tons. So 1,500. Okay. Hell of a big difference, right, compared to what’s happening Right now. And to loop back to what you and Bob Coleman said, why is it like just fluctuating 8 to 900 these couple months is because every time retail deposit physical gold into the gld, because aps have to have to have to facilitate that.

Right? If you have like, you know, retail buying the shares, you have to add gold. It’s not one to one, but they still have to add it, Right? Right. So they add, let’s say 100 times. Every single time they did that, some AP like bullion, I’m guessing Boolean bank came in and you know, basically borrowed GLD shares and went ahead and withdrew physical gold. Right. That’s how they do it. They borrow the shares to withdraw. And that’s one of the, that’s one of the, that’s one of the loopholes, the financial loopholes that, that Dave and, and, and, and who was it? James Turk? Yeah, yeah.

James Dirk. Yeah, exactly. So, so they used it as a piggy. But I got something even better for you guys. You’ll love me for this, okay? You love me, okay? Absolutely. We already love you, Eric. You really love me? Okay, so I guess what I have, I have the latest audit of the JP Morgan and HSBC GLD vote numbers say right in front of me. Well, it’s an order. Go ahead, let us know. BV did it. Okay. BV did it. It’s a third party, Dave. But like do you trust it? I don’t know. Right. No, but they did an audit and the report came out for the JP Morgan one, March 4, 2025.

So this is right on, like, right, Just tell us the numbers, Eric. Tell us the numbers. Right, we don’t believe March 5th for the HSBC one. Okay, listen to this. Okay, right. For the JP Morgan one. Because JP Morgan actually has two vows. One in London. Right. And one in New York. Okay? So I’m going to tell you the London one, the London one right now they have 25.85 a6.25.86 million troy ounces. Now that’s, that’s a J. Hold on. I want, I want to understand this. These are the JP Morgan vaults that are spoken for by GLD.

Or these are these GLD just PLD. This is just GLD numbers. Okay? 25.8. 6 million troy ounces. And the London 7.735, 000 triances for New York. Okay. Okay, so 25.8. Just say 20. 25.8. Right. 25.8 for London 735. 735. 000 for answers from New York. For New York. Okay. Okay. Now I’m going to move over to hspc, right? HSBC only keep their GLD gold, okay, in London. That’s right, by the way. But no, they were the first bank to pull out and close their US operation. They saw this coming. Go ahead, Eric, but listen to this.

It’ll blow your mind. Guys. Hsbc only has 2.4 million troy ounces. So JP Morgan, this is the crazy news, my friends. JP Morgan is essentially, in all practical purposes, pretty much the sole custodian of GLD physical gold. Yeah, Isn’t that crazy? We were just talking about this, Vince. Two weeks ago, we don’t know what’s happening, and boom, this happened. They took over, just like that. Exactly. The HSBC is probably buying the gold for China and pulling it out of the West. When you think about it, they’re probably one of the ones doing that, right? I mean, does that make sense, Dave? I mean, close your Western shop, you say, my, my allegiance is with Asia.

Because that’s, I mean, they are, I guess they’re English too. I guess, but I mean, that’s, that’s, yeah, so that’s, that’s all fascinating. It is an English bank. Yeah. So, so my point is, GLD Gold is back in American hands. Right? Now it’s in American custody because before, like, all of it was hsbc, all of it was in London. Right now you have JP Morgan, pretty much taken over 90% of the, of the GLD gold to be used as we see fit in America. Motherfucker. All right? It’s our metal. That’s the point. You own, they control it.

And ownership is not as important as control when you’re dealing with legal entities. Possession is 10 of the law when it comes to physical gold and silver. That’s right. That’s right. I, I say the same thing, Dave. I, I, I, I told people, I said like, you know, once you have the thing in your hand, that’s 99.9% of the battle. Battle, Right. Who cares about rare hypothecation as long as you have it? Okay, so we’re pressed for, we’re pressed for time. What I want to, I want to exit gold by asking a simple question. And the simple question, we all have our own opinions on it.

And, and it’s basically, the question basically, is we all have variations of the same answer. That’s what’s funny about it. Why is the gold being repatriated now? And Dave, you hinted at what your answer is. So I want you to start. So why do you think the most like nobody knows we know that most likely scenario in your mind, broad or narrow, however you want to, why you think there’s an urgent, not urgent, but there’s a pressing need for the physicality of the goal to be back in the U.S. so yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, the powers that be, you know, the people at the Fed, key people at the Fed, key people in government, they see the writing on the wall in terms of what’s going on with, with the shift that you know, there’s, there’s clearly a movement towards re.

Incorporating gold into the monetary system. That’s a good word. And so, and, and I always have said this. I, when I, when I dove into the market back in 2001, I mean I spent 12 hours a day just reading and researching and learning as much as I could. Right. And unfortunately some of the guys that really knew the market back, that aren’t around anymore, they, they’ve either disappeared or passed away. I have always thought that, you know, if, if the world were to go back onto a gold backed currency standard, you know, the US their response when they were trading with China and China say, you know, we’re, you know, we’re happy to accept your currency but it needs to be backed by gold and we need to have proof of that.

The purpose of the BRICS Enbridge concept where it’s like, you know, we’re not using Treasuries, we want to do international trade with you. You got some gold for us. That’s, that’s basically what you’re saying, right, exactly. So, so the US then says, oh well see here’s a piece of paper that says we have 8,100 tons of gold sitting in Fed vaults. You know, well what’s going to happen is China’s going to see, say, okay, we need to see it first before we except your currency. And I think that’s kind of where this is added. And I think that’s if it is the case that they’re refilling the coffers at the Fed with the, and it’s the Treasury’s gold too.

Most people don’t, you know, that gets Fed gold. It’s treasury gold for the most. Exactly. And which means it’s taxpayers gold. Right. You know, if that is in fact what’s happening, it’s because, you know, the US sees the writing on the wall and they don’t want to get caught. So change is coming to the monetary system and Potential international trade partners need to know that we have what we say we have so they can keep trading with us. I don’t mean to simplify what you’re saying, but yeah, that’s. That’s true. I mean, that was. The beautiful thing about Bretton woods is an imposed accountability on the amount of gold the US had, right? Because foreign buyers of Treasuries could redeem those certificates at the Fed in exchange for gold bars.

And that. That’s what was. That’s what started to happen in the 60s, and that’s what led to closing the gold window, because all of a sudden, the US had issued more Treasuries to foreigners than they had gold to satisfy the claims. If everyone who follow the foreigners decided they wanted to convert their Treasuries into gold. Now, we issued those Treasuries by accident. That wasn’t on purpose. So we were sorry about that. No, I’m just kidding. It’s over. Well, thanks for watching this morning’s Markets and Metals with Vince Lancy. We sure appreciate you tuning in and starting your day with us here.

Hope you enjoyed the show and we’ll see you again tomorrow. Please note that this video is not intended as legal, licensed financial trading advice and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please contact your financial advisor before making any decisions. And thanks for watching SA.
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