Record Volume and Value of Gold Stocks - 9,537 tonnes Valued at $578.8 billion held in London Vaults
As at end December 2020, there was an all-time record high of 9,537 tonnes of gold, valued at a record high of $578.8 billion. There were also 33,608 tonnes of silver, valued at $28.6 billion. This equates to approximately 762,939 gold bars and 1,120,283 silver bars.
The data represents the holdings of seven custodians offering vaulting services (all of which are LBMA members) and the Bank of England. The seven custodians comprise four security carriers (Brinks, G4S Cash Solutions (UK), Malca-Amit and Loomis International Ltd) and three clearing banks (HSBC, ICBC Standard Bank and JP Morgan). Also included are the gold holdings held at the Bank of England (not an LBMA member) which offers gold (but not silver) custodial services to central banks and certain commercial firms that facilitate central bank access to the liquidity of the London gold market. Those clearing members without their own vault operations - Scotiabank and UBS - utilise their accounts with one of the LBMA custodians or the Bank of England and therefore do not contribute to the statistics to avoid double accounting.
The historical monthly data series from July 2016, as well as other information on the London physical vault holdings can be found here on LBMA’s website.
Daily Averages Gold Clearing Data - December 2020
The volume of ounces transferred in December increased by 3% month on month (m/m) to 18.9 mn ounces, with the corresponding value up by 2.6% to $35.1 bn. There were 4,372 transfers in December, 14.5% lower m/m, with the clearers settling on average 4,330 ounces per transfer, 20.4% higher m/m.
Daily Averages Silver Clearing Data - December 2020
The volume of ounces transferred in December increased by 4.3% to 266.1 mn ounces, with the corresponding value transferred increasing by 8% m/m to $6.62 bn. The number of transfers in December increased by 3% m/m to 1,977, with the clearers settling on average 134,614 ounces per transfer, 1.3% higher m/m.
The average gold / silver price ratio in December was 74.6 (down slightly from 77.5 in November).
Both the vault data and the clearing statistics are published on the first day of each month (in the event that the first day of the month is a UK Bank Holiday or falls on a weekend, the data will be published on the first business day of the month).
A full copy of the Press Release can be found below.