Gold swaps undertaken by the Bank for International Settlements, the central bank of the central banks and often their broker in the gold market, fell slightly in July, by about 14,000 ounces, but, rounded off, remained at June's 34-tonne mark, according to GATA consultant Robert Lambourne.
The information can be calculated from the bank's monthly statement of account for July, published today:
https://www.bis.org/banking/balsheet/statofacc250731.pdf
The report implies that the bank was not recruited to intervene much in the gold market in June on behalf of its member central banks and that there continues to be little interest among them in incurring more gold liabilities or in letting their metal get far from home.
The report written by Lambourne on July 1 --
https://www.gata.org/node/23935
-- provides some history on the swap transactions and their volatility since the bank in 2010 made it possible for its gold swaps to be calculated.
As recently as January 2022, the bank's swaps exceeded 500 tonnes, but they have fallen sharply since, indicating a change of policy toward or outlook on gold, a trend that seems to have correlated with increasing central bank acquisitions and repatriations, along with gold's rising price.
Nevertheless, the BIS has a well-placed confidence that no mainstream financial news organization will ever ask it to explain the purposes of the swaps and to identify the parties to them, lest gold cease being the immensely powerful secret knowledge of the financial universe.
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