Record Volume of Gold Stocks - Over 9,450 tonnes held in London Vaults
As at end November 2020, there was a record high of 9,452 tonnes of gold (representing the seventh consecutive monthly increase in stocks), valued at $535.6 billion. There were also 33,475 tonnes of silver, valued at $23.8 billion. This equates to approximately 756,167 gold bars and 1,115,829 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 - November 2020
The volume of ounces transferred in November bounced back from a 5 year low in October, posting an increase of 16.5% month on month (m/m) to 18.4 mn ounces, with the corresponding value up by 14.3% to $34.2 bn. There were 5,111 transfers in November, 23% higher m/m, with the clearers settling on average 3,596 ounces per transfer, 5.2% lower m/m.
Daily Averages Silver Clearing Data - November 2020
The volume of ounces transferred in November increased by 12.5% to 255.1 mn ounces, with the corresponding value transferred increasing by 11.6% m/m to $6.1 bn. The number of transfers in November increased by 28% m/m to 1,919, with the clearers settling on average 132,901 ounces per transfer, 12% lower m/m.
The average gold / silver price ratio in November was 77.5 (down slightly from 78.4 in October).
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).