Sprott study of trade data suggests huge export of U.S. government gold

Sprott Asset Management's Eric Sprott and Shree Kargutkar today report that their study of 22 years of international trade data suggests that the United States has exported almost 4,500 tonnes of gold beyond the country's supply capability.

Sprott and Kargutkar write: "The only U.S. seller that would be capable of supplying such an astonishing amount of gold is the U.S. Government, with a reported gold holding of 8,300 tonnes. The U.S. Government's gold holdings have not been audited or verified in more than four decades. The U.S. trade data defines the export of nonmonetary gold as a sale of gold from a private seller within the U.S. to an official agency. In September 2012 we espoused that the Western central banks have been surreptitiously selling or leasing their gold through private channels in an effort to increase the available supply and in turn suppress prices. This new analysis using official U.S. agency numbers seems to provide the strongest validation of our hypothesis to date. It is worth noting that our data covers only two decades and that the export gap could in fact be significantly larger if earlier numbers were included or the real private investor demand for gold was known."

The Sprott and Kargutkar commentary is headlined "Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left? -- Part II" and it's posted at the Sprott Internet site here:

http://www.sprott.com/markets-at-a-glance/do-...-banks-have-...