BRICS

The size of the physical silver market is of $20 billion, whereas Bloomberg is mentioning $5 trillion.

Both Russia and China have decided to put gold at the center of their currency war against the “exorbitant privilege” of the US dollar.

Up another 300,000oz (9.3 tonnes) in the last month. Russia is a solid accumulator - same as China.

We often talk in these pages about the difficult situation facing Europe’s southern countries, but the financial crisis is also affecting countries that are considered sound and that have a good reputation. This is the case with Austria, facing difficulties with its banking sector.

In this article, I will look at the importance of India in the gold market. In India, gold is religion. India's love affair with gold is timeless, spanning centuries even millennia.

Yesterday, the daily volume on the GDXJ Junior Miners Index beat all records, exceeding by 33% its highest historic value, and producing a 5.78% hike, five times the performance of gold!

We cannot understand today’s gold market without understanding the role China and, in a different way, India play in it. The gold market in general is very opaque and the Chinese one, in particular, is even more. In this article, I will look at China’s role in the gold market.

Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong for april. Net imports of 64.04 tonnes. Charts by Nick Laird

Let us look now at the relationship, if there is one, between gold and platinum. Is platinum “white gold”, or “little silver” as the Spaniards call it, or is platinum different from gold and silver.

A new signal, this time coming from large corporations distancing themselves from White House political decisions, that sanctions against Russia are ineffective : Exxon and BP are maintaining their partnership with Russia.